Transcendence
by Author M. Austin
Summary: Non-magic AU. Even as the planetary population of ES-5 quavers in fear of the terrorist Lord Voldemort's growing regime, a young boy is prophesied as the great general who will defeat him. Harry Potter is trained hard to wear this mantle, and he grows to become a formidable soldier, but will he destroy Voldemort before his mentors, his training, his very nature destroys him?
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer:** I really don't own the Harry Potter universe. How lovely of you all to think that of me though!

**Rating: M **for safety, for violence, for upcoming language, for grey moralities etc.

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_"The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches ... born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies ... and the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not ... and either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives ... the one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies ..._"

The most vivid memory Harry had of his parents detailed their deaths. Before that pivotal moment, he only had brief, colourful snippets, like his brain was a degraded memory board. A woman's face, scrunched up in perpetual laughter as her blazing red hair whipped around her head. A scruffy-haired man lifting him up into the sky, once, twice, three times. A melodious voice continually whispering in his ear, professing its love for him.

He vaguely remembered the place where he had lived: a little cottage far out into the wilderness, He'd known no company but that of his parents, the dogs and the occasional visit from Sirius and Remus, who could reasonably fit in the previous bracket, according to what his dad had said.

No-one but this select few ever entered the house; no travelling strangers or distant relatives of the small family stumbled across their little haven. So Harry remembered clearly when the man who breathed death arrived.

The dogs barked, and his parents' easy demeanours bled from their bodies. They pushed him back, behind them, forming a human barricade. The death-man brought a group of people with him, all masked and dressed in dark robes, and they swarmed into the house, spreading, blackening. His parents fought but were subdued, and Harry was caught up and bundled, no better than a pile of dirty laundry. Harry remembered his mother's roar, never a scream, demanding for them to let him go.

The man's clinical laugh made Harry snivel, drawing the red-eyed attention of the intruder. Despite himself, the boy stared up into those red eyes. He had never seen irises of that shade before.

'You must be Harry Potter,' the man said to him, lowering himself onto his haunches for a better view of Harry's face. Harry looked back, tears frozen by helpless wonderment. Even then, Harry could tell that there was something different about this man, that he viewed himself as a king and expected the world to follow. 'You're a brave little boy, aren't you?'

Harry didn't speak, not even as the man took his chin between cold fingers and tilted his head up further. 'Born as the seventh month dies to a family who has thrice defied me. I will mark you as my equal. So for that reason, I cannot let you live.'

Harry didn't understand, but he saw the knife, glinting as cruelly as the death-breather's eyes, pointing towards him. Now Harry moved, struggled, screamed, but someone held his head still as the knife came closer. The fine point slipped seamlessly into Harry's forehead, tugging at the flesh until there was a crude, red, lightning-bolt shaped scar dripping blood onto the howling child's face. The mother was shrieking now, the father bellowing and the dogs, startled into rage, flying at the intruders with teeth bared.

A gunshot fired, and Harry's favourite chocolate Labrador lay on its side, darkness pouring from the wound in its head, staining the floor, the carpet, everything. Harry could only cry so hard. He treated the first dog's death with the same tears as those for his new scar. The men of the room laughed and shot at the other dogs, bringing each down with a pitiful whine.

'Bring them over.' The leader jerked his head at Harry's parents, and they were indeed brought over, Harry's father managing to throw off his attackers twice, his mother fighting desperately with teeth and nails. But it was over soon. There were too many of them.

'The father is a bit too troublesome, I think.'

The death-breather had a gun too, and he aimed it now at Harry's father's head.

'NO!' Harry screamed, but he was quickly cut off by a gloved hand pressed to his mouth. His face red and aching, he watched in silent horror as his father was shot in the chest, the words "I love you" immortalised on his lips as he looked at his son for one last time.

'James!' was the mother's wounded cry. Her head lolled forward, shoulders trembling with the weight of her grief. 'Please. Please, you can kill me, but don't kill Harry. Not Harry, please.'

'The boy must die.'

'_Please_, not Harry. He did nothing to you. He's harmless. Spare him, spare Harry. _Please_.'

'All right, you may leave and take the boy with you.'

Harry's heart lifted. His arms were released, and he held them out to welcome his mother, who pulled him into her warm embrace. Those brilliant green eyes, the picture of his own, glistened with joy, sorrow, fear and relief before deadening suddenly as the familiar gunshot sounded once more.

'Mummy?' Harry breathed as she stuttered and gasped, slumping forward and showing the ragged mess of blood and hair on her back. 'Mummy!' The death-bringer's laugh was merciless as he shot her again, delighting in her son's horror.

And Lily Potter died in her child's arms.

There was no time for ceremony. Her body was dragged away to lie with her husband's, the first respectful gesture Harry had seen today. But that didn't last because now the death-bringer was standing before him, as tall and foreboding as Harry was weak and alone.

'Behold,' the man announced to his jeering followers, 'as the prophecy dictated, my equal. A snivelling little runt gifted, it was said, with the power that "I know not". The prophecy was wrong, was a lie. See, I have even deigned to mark him, and yet he cowers and cries. I will defy this foolish prophecy once and for all and kill him.'

He raised his gun one last time, and Harry clamped his lips shut, trying not to cry anymore. His eyes were glued to the barrel as it aimed directly at his heart, but then it faltered, paused, before being slid back into its holster.

'No, I've changed my mind. I want it to be slow. I want to see the light leave his eyes. I want to feel the life pour out of his feeble little body.' He seized the boy by his neck, lifting him off of the ground with one hand.

Harry gurgled, attempted to kick out and disable his attacker, but ultimately failed. His neck throbbed around his larynx, too compressed to release sound or take in air, so he thrashed about as if he was silently drowning, until he was too weak to move. And yet the death-bringer continued to crush. His eyes fell to one of the dogs on the floor. From this position, it looked as if it was sleeping or playing dead.

Playing dead. The four-year-old could hardly believe this stroke of inspiration, but he quickly carried it out. He let his eyes fall shut and went completely limp in the man's grip. And yet the death-bringer continued to crush, making sure that every trace of life was choked from him. Harry couldn't manage much longer. Either the man released him now or he would die.

Finally satisfied, the man dropped the boy to the ground with little delicacy. Harry lay on his back, scarcely breathing, but alive. The man was talking, addressing someone, and the boy carefully listened.

'…have a son his age, do you not?' There was a satisfied hiss to the voice that made Harry want to shudder. Luckily, he was too weak to.

'Yes, my lord.' Harry didn't expect it to be a woman's voice, low and fearful.

'Check that the boy is dead,' the man ordered dismissively.

'Yes, my lord.'

Harry's heart froze. He would still die after all. The follower would pronounce him alive, and the death-man would really kill him this time. A staccato of footsteps, a warm hand at his brow, a pair of soft, grey eyes gazing at him through a mask.

'Ssh,' the woman whispered in the most hushed tones, stroking the boy's face before touching the shallow yet defiant pulse in his neck. Harry froze, but the woman didn't stand immediately and doom him with her next words. Instead, with a heaviness that only a parent could achieve, she said, 'He's dead, my lord.'

'Good. Now let us leave. I am finished with the Potters.'

'Can't we take the woman with us? Such a pretty corpse shouldn't be wasted.' Harry almost betrayed himself, wanting to jump up and attack, but settling for soundlessly clenching his teeth.

'Silence, Greyback! The Potters: gone from this earth, completely destroyed, that is what I want. Only then will I be truly triumphant, truly invincible.'

His followers filed out, the death-bringer the last to leave. With a chuckle, he fired one last shot. Harry flinched, but nothing hit him. The man left shortly afterwards, and Harry slowly opened his eyes. The door and the surrounding wall were on fire, and the flames were quickly spreading. Harry choked with no more tears left to cry, crawling over to the bodies of his parents.

He tried to speak to them, strangled howls never really unifying into words. He desperately pulled at them, trying to drag them from the blazing building as if they were still alive. Their dead weight made them impossible to lift and difficult to shift, and Harry managed a few inches before giving up. He looked up. The door was lost in the blaze now, its outline warping. Harry knew that he wouldn't be able to make it through.

Shuffling back, he lay between his parents' corpses, took his father's hand in his left and his mother's hand in his right, and waited for death as the fire blistered the tears off his face.

A crash exploded from behind him followed by an unfamiliar voice. 'James? Lily?'

Harry, with lungs full of smoke, struggled to get up, coughing and croaking.

''Arry! Get in 'ere, Sirius! 'Arry's in there!'

At the sound of his godfather's name, Harry faced the door. There was a giant in the frame, who, by the looks of it, had broken the door down. A smaller figure jumped through the flames, arms shielding his face, and ran the rest of the way.

'Harry!' Sirius pulled the boy into his arms. If he saw the dead Potters on the floor, he didn't say. 'Let's get you out of here.'

'But– Mum–'

'Ssh, I'm keeping you safe, Harry.'

Cradled in Sirius' arms, Harry Potter passed out. He would never be so safe again.


	2. Chapter 2

A decidedly less violent chapter, hooray. Thank you to Grapes and LoveInTheBattleField for reviewing. I hope to not disappoint

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'Harry? No, no, it's ok. You don't have to wake up. You're ok, you're absolutely fine.'

'Pads?' Harry whispered, not sure if his vocal cords would be able to manage more than that.

'Yeah, it's me. Your old dog, Padfoot,' said the voice.

Harry chuckled faintly because he knew Sirius liked his laughter, otherwise why would he say such silly things? Harry opened his eyes. He was in a large, white, mostly featureless room with a row of empty beds lining its walls. He reluctantly breathed in the sterile smell of a hastily erected hospital.

Sirius was sitting by his bed, eyes bloodshot and rimmed with dark circles, but he was smiling. 'Glad to see you're awake, soldier. You hungry?'

'Daddy, Mummy.'

Sirius' smile widened, even as his abused eyes closed and a hand pressed against them. 'Hagrid got the…the bodies. Don't worry, we didn't, couldn't, leave them there.'

Harry nodded, drawing his legs up and burrowing his face into his knees.

'Are you hungry, Prongslet?'

Harry shook his head.

'Thirsty?'

Harry shook his head again.

'Harry, look at me for a moment.'

Harry trembled in the face of the gentle tone, so like his father's, and he almost started when hot liquid poured onto his knees. Once he started crying, he couldn't stop, and Sirius held him tightly, rubbing his back and saying nothing as the boy poured out his grief.

'I'm so sorry, Harry.'

Harry nodded, hiccupping as he curled into his godfather's chest. 'What's going to happen to me now, Pads?'

'I'll look after you, Prongslet. Would you like that?'

Harry nodded fiercely against him. 'And Moony? Where's Moony?'

'Yes, and Moony. He's out, talking to important people. He'll be back in a moment.'

'Where's Wormy?'

'I…' Sirius' grip on Harry's shoulder involuntarily hardened, 'I don't know where he is. Ah, Poppy.' His tone brightened as a medic bustled over to their bed. 'Are you here to tell us that Harry can be released immediately?' he asked with his perfected roguish grin.

She pursed her lips. 'Nice try, Black.' She turned to the small boy and beamed at him. 'Hello, Harry. You've been a very brave, strong boy. You're recovering very well. You should be out in no time.'

'I'm ok?'

'Nothing unfixable. Your minor burns and the bruising around your neck will heal. The cut on your head will scar though, I'm afraid.'

Sirius smoothed Harry's fringe back with a sad smile. Harry looked up at him before feeling his forehead. It was bound with cloth and tape.

'Harry.'

The boy let his hand fall to his side as Remus Lupin led three others into the room. 'Moony.' Harry smiled mildly at the man, who was looking a lot more haggard than Harry remembered. His drawn face loosened at the sight of him as he strode over and gathered the child into his arms.

'Harry, there are some people who would like to meet you,' Remus said, rubbing the boy's back reassuringly.

Sirius looked long at the three new arrivals, acknowledging of the first two but displeased enough with the third to stand up and snap: 'Ok, what is _he_ doing here?'

'Now, Sirius,' said the tall, silver-bearded man in the middle while the dark-curtain-haired man to his left sneered. 'Be civil.'

'You can tell that greasy git the same thing.'

'Sirius,' Remus said sternly, gripping Harry's shoulders meaningfully.

'This…unfortunate situation concerns Severus as much as it concerns you yourself,' was the next thing the man said.

'James and Lily were my best friends. I'm the godfather of their child.' Sirius scowled, ruffling Harry's hair furiously until it stood independently.

'Indeed, my dear boy,' the man nodded, 'but I must say that the untimely death of the Potters affects us all.'

'Harry, this is Albus Dumbledore,' Remus explained, 'Head of the Order of the Phoenix.'

The boy nodded, hoping that the more knowledgeable adults in the room would think that he understood.

Remus pointed to the man on Dumbledore's right, a giant man of astonishing broadness with copious amounts of straggling hair. Harry was baffled that he had missed the man's presence in the room until now. 'That's Rubeus Hagrid. He helped Sirius get you out of the house.'

'All righ', 'Arry?' the giant asked with an air of modesty and warm-heartedness that counteracted his size.

'All right,' Harry sniffled in response, a smile peeking tentatively out from behind his balled fist.

'And that's Severus Snape.'

If Rubeus Hagrid projected friendliness, Severus Snape was the exact opposite. He nodded curtly, fixing the boy with such thinly-veiled hatred that even the young child could recognise it. But Harry could also see the red around his eyes, pronounced by the paleness of his skin. The man had been crying just as much as Harry had. From beside Harry, Sirius growled.

'Now if you wouldn't mind, Harry, I would like to ask some questions. Is that all right?' Dumbledore asked with a kind twinkle in his blue eyes. Harry watched him uncertainly, physically retreating into the protection of people he knew. Dumbledore nodded wisely, 'I will not harm you, Harry. I am firmly on your side. Your parents were two of my dearest friends.'

'He's right, Harry,' Remus said with a squeeze of the boy's shoulder.

Harry leaned into the touch even as he looked to Sirius. 'Siri?'

'It's ok, Harry.' Sirius smiled.

Only then did the boy nod. 'Ok, Mr Dumby…Dumble…Dumbledore.'

The old man simply chuckled as he went to sit on a bed opposite Harry, who still watched him with jaded eyes.

'Now Harry, I suppose the question that it necessary to be asked is how you survived this unfortunate event while your parents perished.'

Harry didn't quite understand the word "perish" yet, but the suggestion of it made his eyes water slightly. 'Um,' with another glance at Sirius, he said, 'I played dead.'

'You mean, like a dog, Harry?' Sirius asked. Despite the situation, there was a gleam of delight in his steely eyes.

'And how did that save you and not Lily?' Severus Snape asked brusquely enough to make Harry jump.

'Now, Severus,' Dumbledore managed to say before being overrun by Sirius.

'What are you trying to say, Snape? Are you trying to say that it's Harry's fault?'

'Sirius!' Remus snapped.

'He didn't shoot me,' Harry said, into the brief moment of silence that followed. 'He shot them, and the dogs, but he didn't shoot me. He tried to strangle me, so I played dead. Like the dogs.' His breath hitched, and he strove to stem the new surge of tears.

'Clever boy,' Remus muttered.

'Any other questions, Snape?' Sirius barked, holding Harry's shoulder.

'Sirius,' Remus sighed with justified impatience.

'What?'

'This is about Harry, not you reliving your petty school rivalries.'

'Damn right it's about Harry. And if _Snivellus_ over there wants to ask Harry any more tactless questions then he answers to me.'

'Yes, I believe that Severus has caught your meaning,' Dumbledore said mildly, gaze not once flitting to Snape's rigid face. 'Now, Harry, I suppose the next most important matter to address is what is to become of you.'

'Siri will look after me,' Harry said immediately. 'He promised. And Moony could too if he wanted.'

'Yes, Harry, I have no doubt about that. What I would like to talk to you about is your future. You are a very special boy, Harry.'

Remus' arms curled tighter around Harry. 'Is this about the…?'

'Not quite yet, dear boy. He will learn of it eventually, but now is not the time. What I would like to ask for, with deference to your positions as Harry new guardians, is key personal input into Harry's upbringing and education. I want to protect you,' he added to Harry, 'and the best way to protect you is to teach you to protect yourself.'

'True,' Sirius murmured reluctantly, coinciding with Remus's 'Of course!' Frowning slightly at Remus, Sirius continued alone: 'But what sort of education are you planning?'

'One that covers all of the bases. That man, Harry, is very dangerous.'

Harry nodded violently. 'He kills people. He brings death.'

'His name is Voldemort–'

Hagrid, the giant, unnoticeable man, screamed as if to remind the room that he was still there. Beneath the multiple stares, he tried to make himself small again, face beetroot red. 'Sorry, sorry Mr Dumbledore. I…it's just that name…sorry…I'll…I'll go. Bye Sirius, Remus, 'Arry.'

'Bye, Mr Hagrid.' Harry waved as the man retreated before looking to Dumbledore expectantly.

'Well, ah, Poppy, you brought it. Thank you, dear woman, thank you.'

'What's that?' Harry asked of the odd contraption that was wheeled between Harry's and Dumbledore's beds.

Its top was a silver bowl and beside this bowl was a jug of the conductive chemical solution that seemed to run through everything these days. Machines, houses, transport…guns. This one, Harry was glad to see, was pearly white instead of the poisonous green that took his parents. The bowl was linked up to a box fitted with oddly-shaped dials and a dark screen.

'This is a Pensieve, Harry.'

'A what?'

'It allows access to your memories,' Remus said.

'If you were to give them willingly, essentially yes.'

'Umm.'

'If we take the memory of your attack, we can view it and understand what happened without you having to relive it again and again. Doesn't that sound better, Harry?'

'Does it hurt?' Harry asked softly.

'Not a lot,' Sirius said and his word was now Merlin since Harry's father died. 'It puts you to sleep. You can hardly feel it.'

'Ok, I'll do it.'

'Good boy.'

'Mr Dum-ble-dore?' Harry muttered as Poppy bustled forward to pour some of the white chemical into the bowl.

'Yes, Harry.' Dumbledore smiled benignly from behind crescent-moon glasses.

'Um, what's the Order of the Phoenix?'

'A question for another time, I'm afraid, dear boy. Just relax for now. You must be as calm and as still as possible for this.'

'Ok.'

Poppy inserted two transparent tubes into the chemical solution, fastening it to the inside of the bowl by means of something that Harry couldn't clearly see. The loose ends of these tubes were brought up to either side of his face.

'Now, this is the worst part, Harry, but it'll be over soon. It's just a little sting.'

Harry found Sirius's hand and squeezed. The leftmost tube touched the skin above Harry's temple and something pierced his skin. But Harry hardly flinched. Compared to the still throbbing scar on his forehead, it was just a little pinprick.

'Good boy, and now the other one.'

Harry was more prepared for this and the tube connected neatly with his head.

'There's a brave boy.'

'Sirius,' Dumbledore said, voice weighted with implication, 'this may take a while.' When Sirius didn't reply, Dumbledore tried again. 'Sirius, James and Lily have been put to rest in the second hall.'

Again there was no answer. 'I thought that you would like to pay your respects and, well, say goodbye in peace.'

'I'm staying with Harry.'

Remus adopted Dumbledore's train of conversation. 'Since we arrived there, you haven't left Harry's side. No-one's in any doubt that you're the most caring, dedicated godfather James and Lily could have chosen. But you've hardly given yourself time to grieve. You need to see them for one last time. You need to say goodbye.'

'But–'

'I will watch over him while you are gone,' Dumbledore said. 'You have my word.'

'I–'

'Siri,' Harry said, 'go see Mummy and Daddy, please.'

Sirius sighed, looking older than Harry had ever seen him, before youth dressed his face with a smile. 'Ok…ok, Harry.'

Remus took his arm and they both stood, supporting each other as they left.

'Siri!' Harry called out after him, and Sirius turned. 'Moony's right, you're the best godfather _ever _in the whole wide universe.'

Sirius barked with laughter, wiping furiously at his eyes. 'Love you, Prongslet.'

'I love you too, Padfoot. Love you, Moony.'

Remus's lips quirked. 'Love you, Harry.'

Harry swore he saw Snape roll his eyes in their direction as they left, but then he couldn't be sure after all. The world was becoming too hard to make out and the memories were resurfacing, expanding, replacing reality. It was odd, seeing images of his house overlapping the hospital, where Dumbledore and Snape stood guard and Poppy retreated from sight.

Dumbledore sighed as soon as she was gone. 'This boy has lost so much, so quickly, has suffered so, and yet we lay such a perilous path for him.'

'At least he lives.' Snape's voice was both sharp and flat.

'Do not tell me, Severus, that you blame the boy for Lily's death.'

'_He_ came to the house to kill the boy, not her. And look who escaped, the child he was after. The son who is nothing like his mother, only his father.'

'Now, you know that that isn't true. The boy is a perfect blend of both parents, just as we have hoped.'

'You really think you can train him to fulfil this "prophecy"?'

'I believe so.'

'So you're still putting your faith so blindly in it.'

'I wouldn't say blindly, Severus.'

'But you still believe in this Seer business? I was also there when it was made, it sounded more like the ramblings of a madwoman than anything close to the truth.'

'Voldemort,' Dumbledore said, ignoring Snape's protesting hiss, 'in believing the prophecy and acting upon it, made this the truth. If he hadn't killed Harry's parents that night, hadn't marked the boy as his equal, we wouldn't be here now, planning to turn this child into the most invincible soldier and leader that history has ever seen. Actions, prophecies are always about actions, and Voldemort has acted. Now we must react.'

Snape didn't reply for a while, and Harry was still in his dreamy state of semi-consciousness. All word from the outside world and the memories within his head seemed to wash over as the white chemical circulated through the Pensieve tubes.

'I know why you are so determined to believe that the prophecy isn't real,' Dumbledore said sternly. 'And I know why you are so quick to blame the boy. Because that is more forgiving to your soul than to blame yourself.'

'I–'

'But it is heartening that you still have a soul to save.'

'If…if I hadn't told him about the prophecy.'

'Then he would have discovered it another way, Severus.'

'…Perhaps.'

The last thing Harry saw before he fell asleep was that pair of grey eyes, beautiful in their compassion and mercy. The eyes of his secret saviour.

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**AN: **From now on, this story will probably be uploaded on a weekly basis.


	3. Chapter 3

**Inconsistent Disclaimer: ** Nope, still don't own it.

**Warnings:** Angry!Sirius equals M-rated language.

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Harry didn't know how many people there were in the world until he attended his parents' funeral. Concealed supposedly safely in his family's cottage, Harry was more accustomed to small groups of people, just his parents and their closest friends. And yet so many surged forwards upon seeing him, claiming to know him, to have known them, and to impress their grief upon him. Even worse were the journalists, who didn't squander precious words on sympathy and attacked him with questions about moments he hated to remember. Harry quickly took to hiding behind whatever was closest to hand: a tree, a wall, a table, Sirius.

What struck him most was the sheer amount of children. He was sure that he had never seen another child in his entire lifetime. Only here, now that his parents had gone and he had been forced to grow up, did they come out to play, and they looked at him with the same fascination that he felt for them. He supposed that most of them recognised him as the orphaned child not, as he would find out later, as the child who escaped Voldemort and was the one destined to kill him.

None of them approached him, and Harry forced himself not to mind, quelling the childlike need for adoration and companionship. It didn't work, and he was found hiding behind the buffet table, stuffing himself with treacle tart and choking down his sobs, by a family that he didn't know. That wasn't saying much; he hardly knew any of the families here, but he felt as if he should know this one. Looking at them was like staring into his past. There was a boy of about Harry's age between the two parents, dark-haired and definitely well-cared for. The adults had faces that Harry recognised from photographs taken during his parents' school years. Harry had never had a name to put to them.

'Harry,' the woman said while her son peeked out from behind her skirts, 'I'm so sorry,' she said. 'I'm so, so sorry.'

It was with reluctance that Harry looked up at her, expecting to see that same parody of sorrow on her face. But it was with relief that he saw her sadness, real and potent, and traces of something else. The sort of expression that Sirius wore when he turned up late to dinner but amplified a hundred times over. Guilt, Harry thought.

But his four year old mind dismissed it as unimportant and promptly forgot it. The woman knelt before him and hugged him tightly as if Harry was her child, and he snuggled close, pretending that the caressing hands were Lily's.

She pulled away too soon, and the sight of the stranger's face was almost too much for him to bear. He turned away, back to his abandoned treacle tart on the ground. The firm pressure on his shoulder made Harry look up with a start. The man was gripping his shoulder a bit too tightly.

'Good luck, Harry,' he said before letting go and guiding his wife and son away. The little boy looked back at Harry with wide eyes, and Harry returned the stare, envious and confused and slightly sadder than before.

'There you are, Harry.'

Sirius just missed them, they might as well have been figments of Harry's imagination, for all Harry knew. A projection of his wishes that evaporated in the dusty air.

...

Dumbledore sighed as he reviewed his computer screen, the only human sound amongst the reliable ticking of his clocks and the occasional squawk from his pet bird. The Potters' funeral was splashed across the Net with stolen pictures of Harry decorating the semi-serious text. Shaking his head, Dumbledore formed a steeple with his fingers and looked thoughtfully over them. The Daily Prophet: that confounded newsposter. Its headliner was practically an invitation to Lord Voldemort. The only reason Harry was alive now was because the Dark Lord Voldemort had believed the boy dead. Now, with the boy so publicly presented, who knew how long it would be before the Dark Lord was tracking Harry down, this time leaving no margin for error?

He would have to get the Order involved, have a rotating watch on Harry, no less than two operatives at a time and–

The doors to his office slammed open, and Sirius Black barrelled into the centre, momentarily distracted by the majestic, orange bird that sat on the perch by Dumbledore's desk, before he found the focus of his anger.

'What the hell is this, Dumbledore? I thought you were going to pay those journalists off!' Sirius slammed his tablet, its screen the perfect replica of Dumbledore's, down on his desk, causing Dumbledore's bird to flap its wings in a steadying motion. 'This isn't even about the funeral. It's about Harry. Look, he's all over it. They're already calling him the "Chosen One".'

Dumbledore smiled serenely. 'Yes, I have also read the article, Sirius. Please, be calm–'

'Calm? I will not be _fucking _calm. How can I be? They're calling him the Chosen One. Are they _trying_ to provoke You-Know-Who? Usually I wouldn't care, the Prophet can mock him all they want, but putting Harry's face on that shit? Why did you even let them into the blasted funeral?'

'Sirius, you know that it wasn't my place to bar anyone who wished to pay their respects from attending.'

'They weren't there to pay their respects. They were there looking for stuff to keep their read count up. And now they're all talking about Harry like he's some kind of messiah or something. All because of that damn prophecy.'

'Finished, Sirius?'

After a long, drawn-out exhale, Sirius nodded.

'All right. Firstly, I'm afraid the Daily Prophet incident was inescapable. The public have been waiting for an end to this war for a while, and now Harry gives them that chance. I'm afraid he's going to be seeing a lot of the press. The most he can do is learn how to use publicity to his advantage.

'Secondly, I am not planning to leave Harry at all defenceless. This building is well fortified, and I am planning to utilise soldiers from my Order of the Phoenix to personally protect him. Of course, you, Remus, myself and Severus will be permanent fixtures.'

'Severus? Severus Snape?'

'I also want to ensure that Harry is perfectly capable of protecting himself. He will be educated in physical combat and weaponry as well as military strategy, problem solving, arguing persuasively, public speaking, battle history, perhaps some languages would be useful as well, to make alliances with other Earth Settlements that do not have English as their official language. I want to send him into the battle with the best chance he has.'

'I don't want to send him in at all.'

'Me neither, Sirius, me neither, but that isn't our choice. It wasn't Seer Trelawney's choice. It wasn't even Fate's choice. Voldemort brought Harry Potter on himself the moment he carved that lightning bolt into the boy's forehead.'

...

Harry's scar was now uncovered, but the skin around it was still angry. He hated looking at it, but Pomfrey insisted on keeping his fringe away from it until it was properly healed.

He sat in Dumbledore's office, his legs swinging several inches above the ground, and tried not to scratch at it. It itched so badly; he really hated it. Harry tried to divert himself by looking at the odd contraptions on Dumbledore's desk. Little mechanical wonders that pivoted, swung or piped steam, some glowing with the jewel-like veins of chemicals. The portrait-lined walls were also of interest to Harry. Although he didn't know who any of them were, he liked searching for the portrayal with the largest nose or funniest pose. There was one man who had been painted holding an ear-trumpet, which (Harry thought) made him look as if he was trying to smoke a pipe with his ear.

Eventually, Harry tired of this and stared ahead, wondering where Dumbledore could be. A caw had him starting violently and turning to kneel up on his seat, peeking around its broad back. A radiant, vermillion bird sailed through the open window and alighted on the carved perch that sat by the desk. So the bird belonged here then. Harry watched it with reverence as it shook out its fiery wings and fixed Harry with a dark, intelligent stare.

'His name,' and Harry jumped again, 'is Fawkes.' Dumbledore entered the room and sat at the desk, opposite Harry.

'He's very…' Harry searched for a word magnificent enough to honour the bird, but he came up short.

Dumbledore chuckled kindly. 'Yes, Harry, I know exactly what you mean.'

Harry nodded. 'What is he?'

'He's a phoenix.'

'Phoenixes are stories,' Harry said, 'for bedtimes.'

'Aah, quite. Phoenixes were indeed a myth before this extraordinary species of bird was discovered. They cannot regenerate.'

'Regenerate?'

'Ah, to be born again. While they cannot be reborn from their ashes, as the legends say, their flaming feathers led the man who discovered them to name them after the legend.'

Harry's mouth formed an "O" of understanding, and Dumbledore smiled again. Lily's thirst for knowledge was there somewhere in Harry's nature.

'Now, Harry. What I'm about to tell you is very important.'

'Ok.'

'It's about Voldemort.'

'The man who killed them.'

'Yes. He is a very dangerous man, Harry, and I'm afraid that he wants to try and finish what he began.'

'He wants…me to die?'

'Yes, I'm afraid.'

'But why?'

Dumbledore looked into those miserable, green eyes and sighed very deeply. This was the first situation in a while that he was not sure how to handle. He would have to tread very carefully. 'Alas, Harry, I cannot tell you. Not today. Not now. You will know, one day…put it from your mind for now, Harry. When you are older, ready, you will know. Now, the more sensible thing to focus on is keeping you alive, wouldn't you agree, Harry?'

The little boy nodded fervently, easily sidetracked.

'Good. You will be living here from now on, in Hogwarts Castle.'

Harry snorted slightly at the name as James would have done before covering his mouth and apologising as Lily had taught him.

'You will be taught everything you need so that you become just as strong and smart and powerful as Lord Voldemort. Sirius and Remus have already agreed to live here too,' he said, knowing that this would cheer Harry up. The child brightened immediately, gifting the room with a dazzling smile. 'Is that agreeable with you, Harry?'

'I agree,' he said after breaking the word down into recognisable parts. 'I agree, Mr Dum-ble-dore.'

And that was Harry's beginning.

* * *

**Jaysnow-Silverblaze **and **LoveInTheBattleField**: Thank you! I'm glad that you liked it!

**Grapes:** Thank you. :) Let's just say that I'm attempting to keep everyone as in character as this alternate universe setting can afford. For me, that would mean a manipulative yet well-meaning!Dumbledore.


	4. Chapter 4

**AN:** Sorry for the delay. You can thank a recalcitrant macbook, a chapter in dire need of some sort of plot interest and, well, me being lazy. This chapter started out as a massive info-dump. I'm not really sure what it is now.

For the disclaimer, you can refer to the first chapter if you feel the desperate need to.

* * *

Hogwarts Castle was too vast for one small child. It may have been Harry's Wonderland, but it was also Harry's prison. While there was no end to the assortment of rooms that Harry could explore, he wasn't allowed beyond the castle grounds. His only playmate was Sirius, who, as childlike as he could be, was more of a father-figure than the peer the lonely boy needed.

The sheer quantity of adults in his life allowed for very little playtime. Dumbledore's Order of the Phoenix doubled as his guard and his teachers, dedicated to ensuring his survival. Remus, Harry was surprised to find, was skilled in hand-to-hand combat while Sirius, with a sabre in hand, was a duelling master. And while Harry quickly took to their style of teaching, there were also teachers like Alastor Moody, the eye-patch-wearing amputee with a temperament to match his staunch, craggy face.

Their first lesson hadn't been one to easily forget. Harry had been directed to a seemingly empty room, one he was sure had been a large study at some point but since then had been cleared and scrubbed and stripped back to its basic, cavernous capacity. While Harry looked to his left, trying to remember how that particular side of the room looked before, something flew at him from his right. It hit his neck with stinging force, and Harry lost his footing, collapsing against the wall with a yelp.

Slowly, Harry looked from the little orange pellet rolling around his shoes to the area from which it had been fired. Standing there, with a menacing black rifle in his hands, was the most frightening man the four year old had ever laid eyes upon. And he looked furious.

'Dead,' he barked. 'If I had been one of the Dark Lord's Death Eaters, you'd be off to meet your parents before you even realised why.'

Harry's face crumpled at the mention of his parents, but this man showed no remorse.

'Never enter a room without recceing it first. It isn't safe until you've noted every entrance, every exit, every person, object or hiding place. With your evident lack of brains, after you've done all that, it still probably wouldn't be safe. The threat of the Dark Lord is real. You know full well that he doesn't care that you're a wee brat that doesn't even clear his navel. He'll kill you all the same if you walk into his sight gaping at the scenery.

'Now, Dumbledore sent me to you because a dead man can't kill the Dark Lord. I've obviously got a lot of work to do, starting with basics of staying bloody well alive. So what now, Potter? Your enemy has been so kind to let you know he's in the room. What's your next move?'

Throughout this blinding, flabbergasting tirade, Harry had remained pasted to the wall behind him, his gaze drawn to the gun in the stranger's hands. It looked nothing like Voldemort's gun, but still he heard the man's icy laugh, his mother's cries, smelt the fire, the blood. The combative stranger didn't hesitate. Hoisting his gun, he shot Harry with another hard pellet, catching him in the chest. 'Ow!' he protested.

'Dead again, Potter.'

'B-but I know you're here now,' Harry muttered quaveringly. 'It's not a surprise anymore.'

'Indeed, but you're no less dead. What's the use of knowing the enemy's in the room if you're too slow to avoid them?'

Harry hadn't an answer to this.

'Dumbledore tells me that you've started combat training and sabre-play already. How are you getting along with those?'

'They're hard,' Harry admitted.

The man nodded. 'Do you get tired quickly, easily?'

It was Harry's turn to nod.

'Well, they clearly went about this all wrong. It's not best to learn any sort of martial activities until…' Moody had looked at Harry more closely then, as if he only noticed just how small his new student really was. 'You can't fight well without having a solid, er, base of fitness, of strength and agility.'

Harry was so intent on listening to his words that he only registered the man aiming his gun when it was too late to dodge completely. The bullet caught him in the side midway between his hasty lurch to the left, and he doubled over, too scared to even sniffle.

'Always be aware. Never keep your attention focused on one place. Let that be the one thing that lodges in that soft head of yours. Constant vigilance.'

'Constant vigilance,' Harry murmured in reply, though he had no idea what that meant.

The man stalked towards him, causing the boy to scamper to his feet and back away, eyes trained warily on the barrel of Moody's gun.

'That's better. There's only one time when it's smart to be near an armed enemy, and that's when you have your own weapon, which you bleeding well don't. Distance won't save you, but it's better than letting the enemy too near.'

He shot, and Harry heard the satisfying smack of the pellet meeting the wall he had recently been standing in front of. His brief moment of celebration was injurious; Moody caught him in the calf before he had time to refocus on the task.

'Keep moving. Standing still is like painting a massive target on your forehead: too tempting by a half. I'll sort you out, don't you worry. Under my guidance, you'll be running miles without stopping, light as an acrobat, quick as the very bullets you'll be trying to avoid. And vigilant, always, always vigilant.'

He hobbled forward, stepping heavily on the metal, mechanical wonder that was his prosthetic leg. Harry tried to break away, but the man dropped his gun and seized Harry's shoulder. 'After all, you don't want to end up like old Mad-Eye, do you?'

Moody flipped up his eyepatch, and Harry's scream half-escaped him in a strangled squeak. He hadn't known what to expect, a gaping socket, a flat terrain of skin marred by a clean scar, maybe even a small, dark eye to match the one that stared at him so intensely. Instead, there was a synthetic eye, a bulbous, unwieldy thing that spun madly in its socket, as if its electric blue mass was chartering every detail of their surroundings.

Moody waited a while, until the boy had calmed down somewhat, before somehow managing to release the boy's arm as roughly as he had grabbed it.

'Outside,' he snapped.

Harry nodded to Moody's shoes. Dissatisfied, the man forced his chin up. 'Yes, sir.'

'Yes, sir,' Harry repeated, managing to meet his gaze for a full two seconds before glancing down again.

For the rest of the afternoon, Moody had Harry doing stretches and running the length of the largest field that the Hogwarts grounds could offer. But Harry remembered the night even more. It was the first time in too long a while that he, albeit aching and covered in bruises, sank easily into a deep, dreamless sleep.

…

The next couple of years were the hardest. Harry was suddenly expected to learn and give so much so often. But as the various disciplines became more familiar to him, he stopped enduring his lessons and started excelling. And with the gradual introduction of weight-training, acrobatics, knife-work and marksmanship, Harry began to evolve into a boy whose deadliness belied his size.

But he had to be smart. He was thoroughly educated in the history of his planetary system, from the mass exodus of humans from Earth to the discovery of crystal mines and chemicals as a power source to various wars and their great military heroes. In this, Harry found it more of a struggle to concentrate, his mind roaming when conflict and murders were discussed, but his tutors were patient, understanding that he would grow to appreciate what they were trying to teach them. When he was mentally capable, they would move him onto battle strategies, educate him in commanding multiple legions and squads, and also motivating his followers with powerful rhetoric. If he happened to inherit any of his father's charisma, they would make full use of it.

Hagrid taught him how to survive in the wild in the Hogwarts grounds' forest, although he seemed more concerned with capturing the dangerous animals that it was best to avoid, Pomona Sprout added to this knowledge with plant identification and usage, and Madame (Poppy) Pomfrey helped him with the basics of healing and first aid. Molly Weasley, a motherly woman with flyaway red hair, insisted upon teaching him how to cook as soon as he could reach the kitchen counter. Harry saw these lessons as a reprieve from his otherwise strenuous schedule and particularly liked baking; kneading the dough was very therapeutic.

There was another reason he looked forward to Molly Weasley's visit, and it came in the form her boisterous son. Ron Weasley was thin and freckly with vibrant red hair, but most importantly, he was the first boy Harry had ever spoken to. Not that the conversation was anything spectacular, Ron was in all senses a real six year old boy, but Harry vowed to embrace any words that came out of his mouth.

'So you've lived here for two years?' Ron asked incredulously, sneaking a cookie from the cooling rack. 'By yourself?'

'Not by myself. I had Sirius and Remus and Mr Dumbledore and lots of tutors like your mother.'

'My "mother"?' Ron asked, amused, before taking a bite of Harry's latest bake. 'Mmm, stellar grosh! Nice one.'

'Thank you,' Harry said politely. He didn't know what else to say, what other children liked to talk about. Luckily for him, Ron was full of questions.

'So, what's it like being "the Chosen One?"'

'The Chosen what?'

'The Chosen One, that's what everyone calls you, you know. Because you're going to fight You-Know-Who, aren't you?'

'Oh yeah, that.'

'How're you going to do it?'

'I have no idea, Ron,' Harry said, slightly impatiently.

Ron nodded, absently, finished his cookie and grabbed another one. He looked out of the window, over the grounds. From their vantage point, they could see the giant pit in the earth where Sirius and Harry went flying.

'That place would be perfect for Quidditch,' Ron said.

Slightly startled by the sudden change of topic, Harry quickly followed. 'Yeah, it would. Me and Sirius never have enough players for a proper game though.'

Ron looked appalled. 'That's horrible. You've never played team Quidditch?'

'Have you?'

'Com, I've got five brothers… and a sister. And I guess she's good for her age. Better than Percy anyway.'

'_Five_ brothers?'

'And a sister, yeah.'

Harry tried to imagine such a number, a gaggle of children with dark, messy hair and sharp, angular faces. He couldn't. 'What's it like?' he breathed, 'having such a big family?'

Ron thought about it for a bit. 'Loud…and crampy.'

Harry grinned at the thought, so different from Hogwarts Castle which was so quiet and spacious that he felt it would swallow him up. 'Sounds brilliant.'

Ron frowned at him before matching his smile. 'Well, you can have them if you like. I'd trade with you any day. You've got so much _room_ here.'

Harry laughed and Ron joined in, looking pleased, but beneath it all, Harry couldn't help thinking. _He wouldn't wish his family away if he knew what it was like. If we traded, I'd be the one better off not him._

Molly Weasley chose that moment to re-enter, taking one look at Ron cramming his face with biscuits and tutted. 'Ronald Bilius Weasley! You were meant to leave them to cool. You should have waited with Harry before eating _his_ biscuits.'

'It's quite all right, Ms Weasley.' Harry smiled.

'How many times, Harry dear? Call me Molly.'

'Yes, Molly,' Harry said.

Ron took this opportunity to try and pinch another cookie, but Molly's instincts were perfectly honed for this type of deception. She dove forward and slapped his hand away.

'_Ow_, Mummy!' Ron wailed.

Harry laughed again. _It's not his fault_, Harry reprimanded himself._ It's not like he knows the difference. He didn't know what he meant. If he did, he wouldn't have said it._ And he pushed the incident away and enjoyed the time spent with someone who didn't care who he was or know what he meant.

…

When Harry was older and more equipped to deal with Snape (in other words, when Dumbledore had finally managed to persuade Sirius' opposition away) Harry learnt the "subtle" art of chemicals. The lessons were, to say the least, unpleasant for both of them and took place in the cheerless dungeons of the castle. In the dark and dingy place, Snape thrived.

'The mixing of chemicals to create potent solutions is a fine and delicate art, one that not just anyone can grasp. With the correct formulas, it can do more than simply power our technology and weaponry. It can rule a man. It can manipulate his body, mould his mind, rob him of his thoughts and memories. It can sustain life and, just as easily, engineer death. Tell me,' the master chemist said, 'how this is possible.'

Snape's pale skin looked especially sickly in the yellow light of the chemical lamps. The sight of him was discouraging enough, let alone the fact that Harry had no idea what the answer was.

'I'm sorry, sir, but I don't know,' Harry murmured. 'I guess that's why you're here teaching me,' he ventured, after the man had remained silent for an uncomfortable length of time.

Snape's black, bottomless narrowed with disdain, and suddenly, Harry was missing even Mad-Eye's tutelage. 'Well, as you are clearly unequal to the task, you can tell me what you do know, if anything. What is a chemicals' base form for example?'

Harry knew the answer and eagerly seized upon it. 'Crystals. We mine them from the earth.'

The answer was correct, but Snape sneered all the same. Young Harry was confused. It didn't matter if he was wrong or right; his new teacher seemed displeased either way.

'After the exodus from our dying Earth was completed, every habitable planet in this solar system populated, every strip of land divided between nations that barely knew who they were once their borders were removed, scientists began to notice strange qualities unique to the nature of their new home. ES-5, and indeed all the other Earth Settlements, were chosen for their climates and atmospheres, so similar to Earth. Even plant and wildlife had evolved comparably here, producing organisms that are believed to be not-so-distant cousins to those that once lived on the old Earth.'

Harry turned each difficult word over in his mind, trying desperately hard to remember definitions, to piece them together with their surrounding phrases into something that made sense. Snape showed no signs of relenting, of catering to his nine-year-old intellect.

'So when this new crystal was discovered, it created a large uproar in the field. It was a substance unlike anything we'd ever seen. In some cases it behaved as metals do. Extremely conductive, they somehow had a natural photovoltaic effect. Ah, the ability to convert light in to electrical energy,' Snape explained in a tone that suggested it pained him to do so. 'It melted at an unusually low temperature, allowing us, of course, to create these chemical solutions. And of course there were the unusual effects they could have on the human body. There were so many varieties, each with markedly different properties. When they examined these crystals, the molecular structure was again unique to anything ever seen, and the atoms themselves…they belonged to an element that had never before been discovered. It had no place on Mendeleev's Periodic Table. This one crystal threw into question decades, centuries of scientific study. They named the element that these crystals were formed from Novellium. Nothing else would have been fitting.'

Is this what Snape looked when he was passionate about something? A spark danced in his irises where there was usually nothing but an empty abyss, and Harry found that more unsettling than his hate-filled glares. Still, he smiled tentatively, trying to latch onto his enthusiasm in some way.

But when Snape saw the smile, he froze, like a child caught playing with a toy they'd supposedly outgrown, and retreated behind his familiar mask of aloof disregard.

'Why are you not writing this down? Do not expect me to repeat this.'

Harry fumbled for his solar tablet and transcribed the fragments of what he remembered with frantic twitches of his fingers. Snape watched him in silence, never once extending a helping hand.

'Sir,' Harry whispered eventually.

'What is it, Potter?'

'I can't really remember a lot of what you said. And I don't think I understood all of it either. And I don't really know how to spell photo…photo-vol…'

Snape sighed. 'You come to me, slow and ignorant. What exactly are they expecting me to make of you?'

Harry's cheeks smarted at these casual insults, bandied about as if there were so many others waiting to follow. 'I think they want you to make me better, to teach me. If I…if I knew everything you were trying to tell me already, then you wouldn't be able to do that. So could you teach me a bit more slowly, sir? Because the way you're doing it now makes me feel like you don't really want me to learn, and that you just want to remind me of all the things I haven't learnt yet instead.'

Snape stood abruptly, and Harry gripped the table top, grappling with his now natural instincts to move, to flee, to fight…

…

'Insolent, arrogant boy. He is just like his father. No patience, no intelligence, and yet he acts as if he owns the settlements,' Snape raged, prowling Dumbledore's office with the man himself as his counsel. 'I don't know why you insist on my teaching him. He doesn't take this seriously. He doesn't want to learn. All he wants to do is…' Snape gestured towards the window where Harry could be seen, flying about with Sirius in the gaping hole in the earth, 'is _fool_ about with his insufferable godfather. He is his father all over again.'

Dumbledore got up to join Snape by the window. 'You seem to be forgetting, Severus, that Harry is a nine year old boy. Let him have his fun now, who knows how much he'll get of that in the future.'

There was a silence in which they watched Harry soar. He had come to master the Nimbus hoverboard that allowed him to swoop and dive and tumble through the air.

'You know, Severus. Sirius was in here not so long ago, complaining of the opposite. That Harry was not having _enough _fun, that he was taking his training too seriously and not being the child that he should be.'

'What does Black know?' Snape scoffed.

'A lot more about Harry than you do. After all, he cares about the boy. You have hardly taken the time to know him. If you did, I'm sure that you would not say such derogatory things about him. He's a good child, a talented child. Bright, warm-hearted and modest.'

'I have no desire to know about James Potter's ilk.'

'He's Lily's child as well.'

'He's _their _child. The Potters', not mine. Nothing to do with me.'

'You cannot still be angry about Lily's choice.'

'And what if I am? It makes no difference now. She's gone and never coming back, and all she's left is that little boy, James Potter incarnate,' Snape spat, already leaving.

'You are so intent on seeing one side to Harry,' Dumbledore called after him. 'But if you would only look closer. Lily is there too. Pieces of the Lily that you loved.' The door slammed, and Dumbledore could only hope that those last words had made it through in time.


	5. Chapter 5

'Come on, Harry, _please_.'

'Sirius, I have to study,' Harry said firmly.

'You've been studying for _hours_.'

'It's important.'

'If you read too much, you'll ruin your eyes, like your old dad did.'

'They'll manage.'

'What happened to the Harry I used to know? The one who never said no to flying, or playing pranks, or–?'

'He's dead, Sirius,' Harry said, trying to hide his hurt. Was Sirius truly longing for the past version of Harry, for a person different to him in all but name? 'Voldemort's coming for him, and he won't survive. Dumbledore says I have to stop him. _Me_. Not that Harry. That Harry's dead meat.'

Sirius nodded, stunned, before aiming a shamed glance at the floor. 'Right, of course, yes.'

'Siri…' Harry ventured, 'do you…do you still love me?'

'Of course,' Sirius said immediately. 'Of course I do. How could you even…? Come here, you.'

Harry allowed himself a giggle as Sirius dove for him, drawing him into a smothering hug.

'No matter how big you grow, how old you get, you'll always be Harry, my godson, my little Prongslet, ok?'

'Ok,' Harry grinned into his godfather's chest, clinging to him in a brief moment of dependence. 'I love you, Siri.'

At this, Sirius broke. 'Harry, you don't have to do this, you know. You don't have to go through this, kill Voldemort. We could run, you and me. We could go to ES-8 or ES-9, where they wouldn't find us.'

Harry pushed away. 'You want to run?'

'I hate this. I hate what they're doing to you. You're a kid, Harry, no matter how brave or strong or smart you are, you're a kid. And they've forgotten that, even you've forgotten that. But you're nine, Harry, nine. You shouldn't have to worry about fighting a monster.'

'I have to, Dumbledore said–'

'Dumbledore says a lot of things,' Sirius said, uncharacteristically cold, 'but how many of them are true? How much do you actually know about this situation?'

'That Voldemort killed my parents, and he wants to kill me too. He's not going to stop until I face him so why not train? In the end, I'm going to have to fight him, so I have to win. It's like…only one of us can come out of this alive, so I should make it me.'

Sirius sighed sharply. 'That blasting…he didn't tell you _anything_. Harry, you don't know the half of it. About the prophecy.'

'A prophecy?'

'And your parents and–'

'Sirius,' Harry said urgently, 'Sirius, tell me. What about my parents? And the prophecy?'

'Listen, everyone believes that you're the one destined to kill Voldemort because of a prophecy made–'

The sound of doors opening cut Sirius off, and the man actually flinched away. Remus was rushing in, looking jittery, eyes flicking between the two. 'All right, you two?' he asked, aiming for casualness. He would have succeeded if the two he was trying to fool weren't learned in the subtleties of body language.

'Yes, Moony,' Harry said with an easy innocence.

'We were just talking about Quidditch.' Sirius grinned.

Remus rolled his eyes as if he actually believed him. 'Again? Really, are you actually capable of talking about anything else?'

Harry, Sirius and Remus descended into their usual playful banter only this time something was off, and they could all sense it. Harry had come to conclusion that Remus had overheard their conversation. _That's right. Sirius offered to run away, just me and him. Not Remus. Maybe that's why._

'Actually, I came in because Dumbledore wants to see you,' Remus informed Sirius.

'Right.' Sirius nodded, gaze lingering on Harry. 'We'll talk later, Harry.'

Harry tried not to look too excited. If he wanted to know what he wasn't being told, he would just have to be patient and wait.

But Harry didn't see him for the rest of the day, and during the next two, it seemed as if Sirius wasn't even present in the castle. Just when Harry was beginning to worry about him, he showed his face only to say that he was going for a fly on his bike. Harry offered to go with him, but Sirius insisted that he needed to be alone. The day he left was strange, looking back on it. Remus, Snape and Dumbledore were all there to see him off as if he were leaving for years instead of just a few short hours. Harry sensed the strange atmosphere, even though he couldn't place it, and held on slightly longer than usual when Sirius hugged him.

'Be careful, Sirius,' Harry said.

'I'm always careful.' Sirius smiled.

'You're never careful,' Harry pressed. '_Never_. Just promise me you'll be careful. Don't do anything reckless.'

'Of course, I won't.' Sirius grinned. 'I have you for my role model after all.'

Harry looked into his grey eyes, grey like the eyes of his saviour from not so long ago, searching for truths. He found love; that would have to be enough.

After a warm goodbye from Remus and a cooler reception from Snape, he climbed onto his magnificent chrome hover-bike and looked back on the congregation, framed by the sun. He sent an affectionate look to both Harry and Remus, completely passed over Snape, and stared at Dumbledore. Even as he revved up his bike, he stared, almost defiantly, back straight, chin jutted, before taking off. Harry watched him until he was absorbed by the sun, melting into oblivion, a place from which he would never return.

…

'No.'

'I'm so sorry, Harry.'

'No.' The boy barely registered him. 'No, _no_. He promised.'

'I know, Harry.'

'He _promised_, Remus!' Harry yelled. 'He said he'd be careful. He said he wouldn't be reckless. He said!'

'I know what he said.'

'Why?' Harry continued. 'Why didn't he listen? Why did he have to fly straight into _known_ Death Eater territory like the stupid dog he is? A stupid, reckless dog. Shot in the head.'

Harry trembled with what Remus knew to be memories of his family's death, the massacre of their dogs. Sirius' death was just another door, a path back to his parents' murder. The memory had still haunted him in his nightmares, but Harry had been safe in the daytime. Until now. Why did it have to be now?

Remus knelt before Harry and dragged him into a hug, trying to be stronger as Harry cried Sirius's name again and again into his neck until his throat was too raw, and he too tired, to make a sound. Only then, in the new peace, did Remus allow himself to weep for Sirius.

…

Harry didn't do much leading up to Sirius's funeral. He confined himself to his room, trying to block out the horrible thoughts trying to rule his head. Dark thoughts that no child should have, of helplessness, murder and despair. When he did leave his room, he wandered the hallways in a daze, stopping and retracing his steps whenever something reminded him of Sirius. He completely boycotted the crater where they had flown together. He would avoid the adults as well, partly ashamed at how he had acted, bawling himself to sleep. Mad-Eye would have had his head for that.

Sometimes he would drift near Dumbledore's office, and he would hear a voice shouting. It sounded furious and eerily like Remus, but it couldn't be him. Remus never shouted. Especially at Dumbledore, whom he deeply respected.

The funeral, of course, was another media hub. Harry was learning to despise the press: cameras invading his vision, stealing his sight with blinding flashes; insensitive, overeager reporters who thrived on tragedy and only wanted his grief while it was still fresh. He was tempted to yell at them, to order them away, but he didn't have the energy. He just walked past them, purposefully ignoring them beyond standard politeness. They showed him no courtesy, why should he them?

He slightly came alive when it was time for him to deliver his speech. He had tried to type what he wanted to say, but it had never come out right. His words were better live, straight from his soul.

'There was a star back on Earth called the Dog Star, and it was the brightest in the night sky. People looked to it for direction, for inspiration, even for handy tips about the weather.' There was a faint rumble of laughter, and Harry let it die down. 'The star's official name was Sirius. Now, _our_ Sirius was a dog, at least that's what he wanted us all to believe.' The audience laughed again, a few cameras flashed, and Harry tried not flinch.

'He was loud, uproarious, _very_ fond of attention and chasing his own tail.' Another laugh confirmed this. 'But he was also loyal, to me and his loved ones, caring and my best friend. Despite all of his failings, he truly was the brightest person in my life. Ever since,' Harry took time to breathe, shake off his impeding emotions, 'ever since my parents died, Sirius has been my father, my mother and my brother and losing him is like…like losing my whole family all over again.

'I still can't believe it sometimes, that he's gone. It felt like he'd always be there for me. He was so persistent, always trying to be by my side. Sometimes I pushed him away, I wish I hadn't now. I should have valued every sign of love he could give. But no, it's too late, and it's just…it's just so wrong. Because I wonder, how many people can Vol- can You-Know-Who possibly take from me? How many more?' Harry was beginning to fall apart. He had to finish it now. 'But I should forget that and just remember Sirius Black. I will always remember my Sirius. He was my Dog Star.'

Harry wasn't sure if the round of applause was proper or necessary, but he cared more about getting off the stage. The journalists only grew more determined, and Harry became tired of running away. Finally, he let a very young reporter, with the bright eyes of a newcomer, snag his arm and lead him away from the throng of laudatory adults.

'Rita Skeeter,' the woman said immediately, offering her green-taloned hand to shake. 'And of course, you're Harry Potter. And may I express my condolences for the death of your beloved uncle.'

'He was my godf-'

'And now, let's talk about that_ speech_ of yours. I'm sure no-one was expecting that at all. So many long words. If you weren't so little, I'd suggest a job in the news business for your way with words. I mean, you're tiny, but you touched all of our hearts. How old are you, six?'

'Nine.'

'Ah, well, still very impressive. Slightly less, but impressive. Now, the question that we're all dying to ask is how did you react when you found out that Sirius Black was dead?'

Harry glared at her in disbelief.

'I'm sensing heartbroken and a byte angry. Yes, that makes perfect sense. After all, sources say that you two were very close.'

'Which sources?' Harry frowned.

'People,' she said vaguely, 'and your speech highlighted that clearly enough, didn't it? Now onto your fabled home. You haven't been in the public eye very much, considering how famous you are. We're all anxious to know where you've been hiding.'

'So that any Dark Lord supporters who read this could inform him and try to kill me?' Harry asked.

'Of course.' Skeeter laughed. 'You're a very smart six-year-old boy, aren't you?'

'I'm nine.'

'And what was it like being the Chosen One and the ex-hope of the planet? It must have been quite exciting.'

_Hope?_ Harry thought, then, _Ex-hope?_ 'Not really.'

'But anyway, back to Sirius Black's death. It was rather suspicious, wasn't it?'

'How?' Harry asked, wondering how this woman could possibly say anything profound or insightful.

'Well, why would the Death Eaters kill a known ally of yours if You-Know-Who is gone?'

The world fell away from Harry for a moment. The chatter, the clink of cutlery on plates, the shuffle of footsteps, disappeared leaving just that word "gone" to reverberate around his head.

'How…' Harry cleared his hoarse throat. 'How long has he been gone for?'

'My, for at least two years now. I thought you knew. Many of his supposed followers have come back to our side, claiming to have been blackmailed into serving him. That's why Sirius Black's murder is so unusual, you see?'

'Is that also why I'm an "ex-hope"?' Harry asked.

'Well, of course. Since You-Know-Who has disappeared from the planet, you don't need to kill him anymore. His reign of terror is over.'

'And yet you still can't bring yourself to say his name,' Harry told her before excusing himself. He had to find Dumbledore.

* * *

**AN: **Feedback would be greatly appreciated. Any thoughts, theories, opinions, suggestions?


	6. Chapter 6

It seemed that Dumbledore had left the funeral early. No matter how thoroughly Harry searched, he couldn't find him. The calm before the confrontation allowed him to think things over. Now he was a little more at peace with Sirius' death, he could reflect over what the man had tried to tell him before. There was an actual prophecy about him. One that stated that he was the only person who could kill Voldemort, the Dark Lord who many feared. But the man had disappeared off the face of the planet. Why hadn't Dumbledore told him? And, more importantly, why had he continued training even through Voldemort's absence? Questions needed to be asked, doubts allayed. Sirius had always spoken well of Dumbledore until the days before he died.

…

'We cannot tell him the truth,' Dumbledore repeated.

'Potter suspects,' Snape said. 'Lupin clearly told us what Black had said to him. He fed doubts into the boy's mind. He effectively told him that you were hiding info from him.'

'We need Harry's support if we should ever hope to defeat Lord Voldemort. He is our only chance. He cannot know the whole truth; it might turn him against us as well.'

'But if he feels that you are being duplicitous in any way, he'll be less likely to follow your plan. We need him to follow the plan to defeat the Dark Lord, to make Lily's death worth something.' Snape's face was pained as he said this.

'I know, Severus, and I understand your sentiments. I will tell Harry part of the truth but not all. He'll feel that there is mutual trust between us. It's time the boy knew of his prophecy after all. His destined path.'

Fawkes cawed from his perch, and Dumbledore turned towards the door. 'It appears that young Harry is coming to find us first.'

The boy was irate, the anger incongruous on his little face, like a vengeful cherub's, a fallen angel's. 'Why didn't you tell me that Voldemort's gone?'

Snape's gaze flicked to Dumbledore's with half-disguised alarm: 'And how did you find that out?'

'I found out from Rita Skeeter, a reporter. And I thought that journalists were meant to be the lowest of the low when it came to telling the truth.'

Despite himself, Snape smirked as Lily's fire came into play. Dumbledore sighed, playing the weary old soul. 'You believe me to be a liar, Harry?'

'I believe what Sirius was trying to tell me, that you've been hiding important things from me.'

'It was for your own protection.'

That Snape knew was true. Dumbledore had gone great lengths to ensure that there was a Chosen One at all, and he would go to even greater ones to make sure he lived to carry out his duty. Also, it seemed that the Head of the Order of the Phoenix had become rather fond of the child, though Snape couldn't see why for the life of him.

'My protection? How is keeping the fact that there's a _prophecy_ about me protecting me?'

'Because of the terrible pressure it puts on you. You are so young, Harry, this prophecy was made before you were born. This whole population has been waiting for someone like you to come. You carry the hopes of our world on your shoulders because of the prophecy. I had hoped to spare it from you a little longer, until you were older, but I suppose that it was inevitable that you found out.'

'People from outside have been calling me the Chosen One.'

'Yes, that is how you are known outside of these walls. You were chosen by Lord Voldemort himself to defeat him.'

'Why would he choose a person to defeat him?' Harry asked, intrigued. Snape had to admire the mastery with which Dumbledore had diffused Potter's anger and manipulated half-truths until they seemed whole.

'He didn't do it intentionally; it is all part of the prophecy. Would you like for me to recite it?'

'Yes, please,' was Harry's immediate response.

'Very well. "_The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches...born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies...and the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not...and either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives...the one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies..."_'

'Neither can live while the other survives,' Harry whispered. 'I said that to Sirius, in a sense.' Dumbledore raised his eyebrows but let him continue. 'I told him that Voldemort wouldn't stop until I was dead, because that's what you said. And I know that I won't be able to live peacefully until Voldemort is gone…so…it's like what the prophecy said…' Harry tailed off, shrugging meekly.

Dumbledore shook his head. How did the boy come across such thoughts by himself? As if Harry could read his mind, he said, 'I've been thinking a lot recently about what everyone's said to me. That's what I thought in the end. Neither of us can really live until the other one dies.

'But then, that's what I don't understand. Voldemort's gone, he's been gone for ages, so why am I still doing this?' His fury was remembered and stoked. 'Why did you keep me going as if he was still there? Why did they kill Sirius if he's gone?'

Snape looked to Dumbledore, simply spectating.

'Harry, you will have to trust my reasoning on this.'

Harry watched him awhile, Mad-Eye Moody's adage of "Constant Vigilance" roaring through his mind. Gingerly, he nodded.

'I believe that Voldemort has simply left the planet, not died like the public hopes and the government and the newshubs have tried to press.' _Ex-hope_, Harry's mind reminded him of Skeeter's words. 'Now the war between our side and Voldemort's forces had been raging fiercely before and after you were born. If you know anything about his character at all, you know that he is unwavering in achieving his goals. His pursuit of you being a fine example.'

Harry nodded in acknowledgement and Dumbledore smiled before saying: 'It would take a lot for him to leave the battlefield; he is so dedicated to winning. So, your conclusion, Harry. Where do you think he's gone to?'

Harry jolted at being given the chance to make a deduction, but he started thinking, drawing on his lessons. 'Leaving the battle would put him at a serious disadvantage, so…so whatever he's doing must be worth it, giving him an even greater advantage. Maybe he's left here to find that advantage. Something to make him stronger, something that we don't have here.'

'Very good, Harry.' Dumbledore beamed. 'When Lord Voldemort returns, I would be very surprised if he wasn't far stronger than he was before.'

'But Mr Dumbledore,' Harry said, 'that doesn't explain why you didn't tell me he went missing.'

'Because I didn't want you to give up, Harry. I didn't want you to drift into a false sense of security or complacency and stop your training and your studies. I wanted to keep working as hard as you have, and if that meant keeping the threat alive, then so be it.'

'You should've known that this news would have only made me work harder,' Harry whispered, and those green eyes were aflame once more.

'I will make note of that for future reference,' Dumbledore said good-naturedly. 'There is something else that I think you should know.'

Harry looked up at him, ready to lap up the new information.

'Several suspected Death Eaters have pleaded guilty to having followed him, claiming to have been misled, blackmailed or under the influence of Imperium.'

_Imperium_, a chemical that, if injected into your bloodstream, could control you. Harry shuddered at the thought, but then he really thought. 'But what if some of them were lying?'

'I'm afraid that most of them probably were. But we have no proof. They have been allowed to live among us in peace.'

'Veritaserum,' Harry said and Snape jolted at this reference to something he'd tried to teach the boy.

'Is as unethical and dangerous as Imperium. They can both damage the body and mind. In fact, they have managed to separate those ex-Death Eaters who have been affected by Imperium from the other claimants because of the weakness in their joints and nerves. It would be cruel to inflict this on the remaining Death Eaters.'

'They deserve it,' Harry said.

'Now, Harry,' Dumbledore looked sad, 'what of those who truly were coerced into following the Dark Lord? Should they deserve to suffer too?'

Harry stared down at his feet. 'That silver thing you gave to me, to take my memories. What about that?'

'I'm afraid that it is illegal to take memories from their owners without consent.'

Harry could understand, he supposed, but: 'Even when it's this important? Even when there are possible Death Eaters in their midst?'

'It is the law, Harry, so I suggest that you would take that up with the Ministry instead of myself. I am only so influential in the world of politics nowadays.'

Snape only just managed to stop himself snorting. Now that was a lie. A decorated veteran of law enforcement who was almost solely responsible for bringing the ES-4 supremacist Grindelwald to justice, Dumbledore was a valued voice at any Ministry function and a welcomed guest at any politico's home. Ever since Voldemort had waged war on Earth's Fifth Settlement, Dumbledore had been entreated to start his Order of the Phoenix, drafting the cream of the Auror force and graduates from top schools for his specialist, autonomous army. The lie was phenomenally large. Still, even with Harry's training, the nine year old couldn't spot the master at work.

'Now, focusing on the more important point. I think that Lord Voldemort planned for them to act this way. Can you tell me why, Harry? I would love a second opinion on this.'

Snape saw Harry try to hide how pleased he was. Make the boy feel respected, acknowledge his abilities, show him trust. Dumbledore really knew what he was doing. Snape's thoughts were interrupted when Harry spoke up.

'Well, they're acting the way they would if Voldemort was actually dead,' Harry began pensively. 'So maybe Voldemort wants to make the Ministry feel secure, so they'd get lazy and not be as prepared when he returns. He wants to take us by surprise.'

'Excellent, Harry. My thoughts exactly. Anything else?'

'Um…' Harry really didn't know.

'Think about the Death Eaters, now living among us.'

'Spies!' Harry exclaimed.

'Indeed, quite a few have enjoyed money and power in the Ministry and even the House of Forebears from before Voldemort's disappearance. They have great influence over what the Ministry does.'

'So we can't trust it, or the newshubs.' Harry nodded.

'No, just yourself, myself and the Order.'

Snape watched as Harry frowned at these words, mulling them over. He looked into Dumbledore's kindly face, eyes dark. 'I trust you. I trust you to help me be ready for Voldemort, so I can fulfil the prophecy.'

His eyes glowed like a solar gun; they glinted with the promise of death. It was a chilling emotion to see on such a young face, but it was necessary. Dumbledore told himself that the thirst for vengeance that burned in Harry's eyes was good for them, good for society, if not for the boy it belonged to.

…

Harry hadn't quite returned to himself after Sirius's death. Remus often voiced his worry for the young boy, who spent more time alone, had vivid nightmares every night and engaged in his studies with unhealthy gusto. He never smiled; he never laughed; he never flew.

Dumbledore began by being satisfied by his improved work ethic but soon came to hold the same concerns. Harry was becoming a very unhappy child, and Dumbledore needed him healthy and sound and in love with the world. How could Harry fight for the world with all his strength if he didn't love it?

Snape was tasked with mind healing exercises in hope of dealing with Harry's now irascible temper, but the boy, antagonised by Snape and his unwelcoming dungeon, found it hard to cooperate.

'How many times, boy? Clear your mind, free it of all thought,' Snape snapped. 'Don't let the anger take hold of you.'

'Stop angering me then,' Harry replied in a rare moment of impudence.

Snape glowered, seeing nothing but James Potter before him, arrogant and unmannerly. 'Watch your mouth, boy. I will not be addressed with such disrespect. You are in my lesson, and I expect you to _learn _and control your petty emotions.'

'Can I ask you something? Student to teacher?'

Snape stared mistrustfully at him. 'Go on.'

'When my mum died, could _you _control your emotions?' Snape hissed, perhaps in protest, but Harry pressed on. 'Did you clear your mind of anger and hate? Did you? You didn't. You're still angry, even now, years later. You're always angry, especially at me.'

Snape was drawn to those evergreen eyes, framed not by the irritating Potter glasses but by dark, sweeping lashes. Suddenly, all he saw in the boy was his mother, that heated glare he wore so well belonged to Lily in the middle of a passionate debate.

'You should let go of your anger first,' Harry was saying, and Snape realised with shock that he had been lost in contemplation over the boy's emerald eyes. 'I refuse to be told off by a teacher who won't even learn his own lesson.'

An aberrant hissing permeated the quiet and orderly soundscape of Snape's lab, and both boy and man turned to see that a chemical formula was bubbling furiously in its flask, instead of calmly simmering as the master chemist had left it. Snape stood to rectify the problem, but it exploded before he could reach it. How strange. He'd prepared that particular formula countless times without issue. Only today…

The boy stormed out before Snape could even order him to stay. Not that the man could have if he wanted to; he was still frozen by the fact that he had never admitted until now. Harry was truly Lily's son.

…

Soon, the only part of Harry's discontent they could treat was his loneliness. The boy had become strongly possessive over the contents of his mind, both the positive and the negative. Remus saw the hole in Harry's life that needed to be filled by friends; Dumbledore saw Harry's isolation as a serious flaw in the boy's behaviour. If Harry wasn't used to being around people, couldn't befriend or charm them, how would he ever lead them?

From that moment on, Ron Weasley's visits to Hogwarts Castle were a lot more frequent. Their friendship had always struck those who knew them as slightly odd. They were very different personalities. Ron was always joking and never took anything seriously, while Harry had a darker edge to him, even at such a young age. However, Harry greatly treasured his first friend, whose light mood never failed to draw a smile out of him, and Ron found Harry fascinating because he was so different from anything else Ron had ever known.

For the first time in the weeks after Sirius's death, Harry was acting like a child again: racing down the hallways, flying in the large dirt basin, exchanging toilet humour and giggling uncontrollably. Remus and Dumbledore were heartened, but Snape internally suffered: they were like Potter and Black all over again.

At Dumbledore's request, Ron occasionally brought along a sibling or two. His eldest brothers, Bill and Charlie, were usually busy, but both ventured out at least once to see the prophesised "Chosen One". Percy was a bore and, to Harry's mild dismay, believed the Ministry over the Order when they claimed that Voldemort was gone forever. Harry had argued with him on this and was glad to hear from a grinning Ron that Percy was cowed out of returning. The next to visit were the twins, Fred and George, who were two years his senior and Ginny, who was a year younger.

'Did I mention that she wants to marry you?'

'What?' Harry spluttered.

'I know! Dosed up, isn't she? I mean, you're only nine, Harry, and she's eight. People don't get married until _ages_ later.'

'Yeah,' Harry agreed fervently. 'What about the twins, what are they like?'

'They're all right. They like to play jokes on people though. They'll probably try to prank you as well, straight away.'

Harry grinned over at Ron. 'I'd like to see them try.'

And try they did. When the three additional Weasleys came to greet Harry, Ginny hanging back and the twins barging forward, the one on the right held out a hand to shake: 'Hi, I'm George.'

'Nice try, Fred.' Ron stuck his tongue out from beside Harry.

'No one asked you, Ronnie,' the exposed Fred retorted.

Harry made to take his hand, before thinking better of it and turning it so the palm was facing upwards. Attached to the centre was a standard shocking device. 'Yes, nice try, Fred,' Harry said, smiling innocently at Fred's stunned face.

'How?' The boy Harry assumed was George asked.

'My godfather was a master prankster.' Harry told him matter-of-factly. 'You're going to have to do better than that.'

Ron crowed triumphantly. 'I _told_ you he was stellar. Ginny, stop hovering around in the back and say hi.'

Ginny shuffled forwards, freckles melding into an unbroken mass of red, and said hello. 'Hi,' Harry replied kindly enough.

'She's not usually like this, Ron whispered in his ear. 'Come on, let's show them the castle. They didn't believe me when I told them how big it was.'

Harry took them on a rather noisy tour of the lower floors (to do all of them would take more time than they had). The twins were very vocal about their opinions while Ginny remained virtually mute.

'M'god! Look at the size of that room.'

'You could fit a giant under that ceiling.'

'If giants existed.'

'What's that?'

'Where does that corridor go?'

'What's this way?'

'Hey, Fred, look at him.'

George pointed at a portrait of a grossly overweight man, a previous owner of the place, sprawled out on a straining armchair.

'Wow, did he really look like that, or did the painter just hate him?' Fred joked in reply.

Harry stared at them seriously. 'That's my grandfather.'

The twins stopped laughing, looking slightly embarrassed. 'Oh, well, er...'

'I've been told that we share a great resemblance.'

'You don't, er, really…' George muttered.

'Are you saying I'm fat?' Harry looked close to tears. He saw Ron red with concealed laughter out of the corner of his eye. 'Do you really think that?'

'No, Harry, of course not.' Fred was looking genuinely affected now.

'I can't help my genes, Fred,' Harry continued.

'Of course not,' Fred repeated. 'But you're fine, you're not fat.'

Harry smiled at them sadly. 'You don't have to lie to me. I know the truth now. I'll never be beautiful like my mother. I'm destined for a life of obesity.'

'No, Harry, come on. We were just joking,' George protested. 'Harry…what are you doing, Harry?'

Even Ron looked concerned as Harry climbed onto the windowsill and swung the window open. 'Harry?'

'It's fine.' Harry sighed. 'There's no point pretending anymore.'

'What's going on?' Ron mumbled.

'Harry, get off there.' Fred was close to yelling but not quite. That was reserved for when Harry jumped off.

'What the-?! Harry?!'

The four Weasleys rushed forwards, pushing for the best view out of the window.

'Can you see him?'

'I can't see him. There's just trees!'

'Harry!' Ron shrieked. 'Harry!'

'Merlin! You killed the Chosen One,' George yelled at Fred.

'_I_ killed the Chosen One? _You_ killed the Chosen One too!' Fred countered, shoving George.

'Technically, you both did,' came a voice from beside them.

The Weasleys jumped out of their skins when they finally noticed Harry, clinging like a monkey to the ivy-swathed wall, the epitome of calm.

Fred was the first to recover. 'You little bludger!'

George was second. 'The pranking kings have been fooled. What a weird feeling.'

'Harry,' Ron snivelled, wiping his nose with his forearm, 'I thought you died.' Beside him, Ginny had actually begun to cry in earnest.

'Sorry, Ron.' Harry smiled at his friend as he landed lightly within the castle again. He looked to Ginny, feeling slightly guilty for reducing her to tears and completely lost on how to comfort her. What did his mum do? She sort of stroked his hair and told him everything was going to be ok.

'Ginny?' Harry muttered, tentatively patting the girl's head. 'Um, sorry, I shouldn't have done that. I'm alive, Ginny, it's ok.'

Despite their tiny gap in age, Harry was much taller and he suddenly felt big-brotherly and responsible. 'I'm sorry, it's ok now. Everything's going to be ok.'

Ginny had stopped by now and she nodded, trying to meet his green eyes with teary brown but always missing.

'Do we get kind words too, Harry?' Fred asked cheekily.

'How about a pat on the head? Do we get that?' George chimed in.

'Oh, sod you both.' Harry laughed.

Harry finally got the chance to play team Quidditch; two a side (a chaser and keeper per team) with the fifth playing the Seeker, who determined the game's end with a catch of the Snitch. If Sirius had been there it would have been an even number. Harry made a satisfactory Chaser and Keeper, but he truly shone when he was chasing after the elusive charged ball, the games being generally shorter when it was his turn to be the Seeker.

Three of the Weasleys went home towards the evening, but Ron stayed overnight as he sometimes did.

'Harry, what you did earlier was really funny, but then it was really mean,' Ron said, pushing a pawn forward.

Harry glanced up from the chessboard. 'Why?'

'I really thought you died.'

'I'm sorry,' Harry said, playing his next move.

'But then it got me thinking, you see.' Ron's hands faltered, a finger tapping incessantly on the head of a bishop, 'I thought, about you having to be the Chosen One, because both my parents know that You-Know-Who isn't dead, and I thought, you could die. I mean, you really could. And that's really scary.'

Harry looked at the board. He didn't feel fear. He was sure that he would, someday, closer to the time, but now it seemed like a distant daydream. 'I'm not going to die, Ron.'

'Promise me.'

'Promises don't always work.'

'Promise me,' Ron insisted.

'I promise I won't die.'

'Good. You're my best friend, you know,' Ron said, the smile sneaking back onto his face.

'I'm not.' Harry smiled anyway.

'You are,' Ron maintained. 'I like being here. It's fun. I wish you could come and see my house too. I mean, it's nothing like your house, but it's loud and crampy, and you said you like that.'

'I want to see your house.' Harry smiled. 'You're my best friend too.'

Ron nodded enthusiastically. 'I used to _really_ want to be you. I wanted to live here and have cool training and be called the Chosen One all the time.'

'But now?' Harry asked.

'Now? Oh, well, sometimes I see you before you see me, and you look really sad. And then I realise you have a lot of things to be sad about. And lots of things to worry about, like You-Know Who.'

'Yeah, I do,' Harry said. 'We both have things to be grateful for though. Remember that, Ron.'

'Yeah, like the fact that I keep beating you at chess,' Ron cheered.

Harry took one look at his endangered king and sighed, mock-exasperatedly. 'Well, if I ever need to play chess against You-Know-Who, I know who to call.'

The boys laughed together as they packed up the chess set and snuggled into bed, comfortable and safe in each other's company.

* * *

**AN:** Not the best I've ever written, but the twins make up for it! Please feel free to alter the chapter-to-review ratio for the better. :)

Grapes: thank you for your continued support. I've always found Remus's canon personality quite passive, which will probably happen here as well, but that's just my interpretation.


	7. Chapter 7

And the mythical Hermione finally appears! Let the slow-moving countdown to Harmony begin.

* * *

'Can I go to Ron's house?'

Dumbledore stared at him from across the desk but remained silent.

'I mean, Voldemort's not out there anymore, so I should be able to go out sometimes, shouldn't I?'

'That is true, but there are some Death Eaters out there, still active. Need I remind you of what happened to Sirius?'

Harry inhaled sharply. 'No, but…'

'But?'

'But I could get someone to go with me, like Moony. I wouldn't go alone.'

'I see. You'll understand that I have to give this some thought first and consult with Arthur and Molly.'

'Yes,' Harry said, slightly glumly, 'I understand.'

'You get on very well with young Mr Weasley,' Dumbledore said encouragingly.

'Yes!' Harry replied, face brightening. 'He's my best friend.'

'That's very good. How would you like to have even more friends like Ron?'

Harry gave him a quizzical look. 'Are you going to bring more Order children here?'

'In a sense.'

'Could you explain, please?'

'I'm thinking about turning Hogwarts Castle into a school once you reach the age of eleven.'

Harry perked up. 'A school? What sort of school?'

'A school that teaches the same things that the Order has taught you.'

'They'll be trained, to be like me?' Harry asked. 'Then, what's the point of me?'

'Even the Chosen One cannot defeat the Dark Lord alone. Every leader needs his army. While these students learn to fight, you will learn to lead them.'

'Why not use your Order of the Phoenix? They're adults, and they already know how to fight.'

'There are simply not enough of them, Harry. I'd number them at six thousand at the most. We'd taken a lot of casualties during the first phase of the war. Also, I believe that growing with your followers, making deep connections with each of them, will serve both your leadership skills and strengthen loyalty.'

'Oh, that makes sense. Who will teach them? The Order?'

'Yes, the Order has agreed to invest their time and knowledge into cultivating these pupils to the best of their abilities. Do you think this is a good idea, Harry? Do you think that this would serve our cause well?'

Harry thought about it. 'Will Ron be at the school?'

'If he wants to then he certainly has a place at this school. The twins and Ms Ginny Weasley as well when she is of the right age.'

'What about the older Weasleys?'

'If they wished to fight for our cause, they would be entered straight into the Order itself. I was thinking of having the eldest year group only two or three years above you.'

'Ok. Can I tell Ron?'

'Yes, you may, when you see him at the Burrow.'

'The Burrow…you mean, I can go?' He waited upon Dumbledore's smiling nod before bubbling with excitement. 'Thank you! Thank you. We should definitely have a school; it's a great idea.' Harry beamed, leaping seamlessly on the table and pulling the startled man into a hug. 'Thank you.' His jewel-like eyes gleamed with joy.

'You're very welcome, dear boy.'

He would let the boy have this treat, Dumbledore mused as the boy ran out of the room, and many others. Present himself as unfathomably kind, make the boy look upon him as his greatest protector and benefactor. And also, let the boy see the world and its beauty while it was safer to do so, let him become attached to it so that he was all the more eager to save it when the time came. It would take more than the desire for revenge to defeat Voldemort. It would take love.

…

Remus and Mad-Eye Moody took Harry to the Burrow by copter, and Harry immediately fell in love with the tall, slanted house, hanging together despite the laws of gravity. Ron opened the door and immediately called backwards: 'Mum! Mum! Harry's here!'

Harry was wrestled into the house by Ron and the late-arriving twins leaving Remus and Mad-Eye to glance amusedly at each other before entering. Ron's father, who Harry still hadn't met, was sitting at the kitchen table, brows furrowed as he read the latest mendacious posts on the Daily Prophet's newshub. He looked up as the noisy welcoming party paraded into the kitchen and smiled at Harry through skew-whiff glasses. 'You must be Harry Potter. Pleased to meet you. I'm Ron's father, Arthur.'

'Hello, Mr Weasley,' Harry said, taken the man's hand. The Weasley patriarch looked rather brow-beaten in Harry's opinion. He was thin, balding and what was left of that trademark red hair was quickly greying.

Before he could say anything further, Ms Weasley, looking as plump and vibrant as ever, seized command of the guests. 'Harry dear! Look at you, you're skin and bones,' she declared, referring to Harry's wiry, fatless frame. 'Tell me you're staying for dinner.'

'Yes,' Harry decided before Remus and Mad-Eye could even get a word in.

'Good, good,' Molly clucked. 'I've baked some pumpkin pie for the occasion.'

'Yes! I knew I smelt something good,' Ron whooped.

'Thanks, Mum,' the twins chorused.

All three Weasleys reached for the slice that Molly was currently levering onto a plate. She whacked each hand with the flat of the utensil, 'Guests first!' she raged before regaining her sweet, mothering tone. 'Here you go, Harry dear.'

'Thank you, Ms We- Molly.'

'It's no problem, dear.' Molly Weasley beamed before cutting a slice for Remus. 'Remus, you're looking peaky.'

The pie was delicious, and the four boys took it out to eat in the garden, which was a wild mess. Harry loved it. It was here, feeling very much like a Weasley, that Harry told them about the school, much to their delight.

'Staying in that massive castle.'

'Learning all sorts of fighting skills.'

'Do we get weapons?'

'Lots of pranking opportunities.'

'Say, Harry, do you know if there are any secret corridors?'

'I'll get to see you every day!' Ron said.

'Aww,' the twins chorused.

'Bless our little soppy Ronniekins,' Fred added.

'I'm not soppy!' Ron's face and ears heated up immediately.

'Leave him alone, Fred. It's not his fault people are so eager to be around me,' Harry quipped, mimicking the Weasley twins' smirk.

One of the twins laughed while the other said, 'I'm not Fred, I'm George.'

'No, you're Fred. I can tell now.'

'How?'

'You have slightly different facial features and mannerisms.' Harry shrugged. 'I mean, you're identical twins, but it's not like you're the exact same person.'

'So, which features?' George pressed.

'Fred has a longer nose.'

'Ha!' George laughed.

'But George has a slightly bigger mouth.'

'What?'

'Ha, big mouth!'

'At least I don't have a carrot for a nose.'

While the twins squabbled, Ron and Harry sneaked off to steal their hoverboards and go flying.

Harry left the castle quite often after that successful trip, and the Weasleys took him out to see the world. They took him to Gringotts Bank, where he found the rather hefty sum of cash left to him in his parents' and Sirius's bank vaults; they went the Diagon Alley, a beautiful, bustling shopping district that sold everything from clothes to pets to chemical solutions. They even took him to his first Quidditch game and got him even more hooked on the sport.

The world was amazing. Harry couldn't believe that it had taken so long for him to see it. Why Lord Voldemort wanted to harm it, Harry couldn't imagine.

…

Preparations for the castle's conversion into a school were well underway. A steady stream of desks and chairs, computers and tablets, benches and beds were being imported by the day, displacing the erstwhile furniture in surplus bedrooms and sitting rooms.

'It is to be called the Official Order of the Phoenix School,' Dumbledore told Harry as they watched the transport of equipment and stationery from the front entrance to various points in the castle. 'The Order and I have used our considerable influence to convince the majority of the public that the Dark Lord can and will return. We have many entrants between the ages of ten and thirteen.'

'That's good.' Harry nodded.

'We've used your name and role at this school quite liberally in order to increase the number of hopefuls. I hope you forgive me.'

'That's ok. So does everyone automatically get in?'

'No, they have to go through some initial tests…don't worry, I'm sure that young Mr Weasley and his brothers will pass. From what you tell me, young Ronald seems to have great tactical skills. If they pass the tests, then they will be sorted into four houses based on their attributes.'

'What are the houses?'

'We have thought about this carefully, I hope you'll agree. The red house will be The Lion House for those of exceptional bravery and strength of will. The blue house, The Raven House, for those with a thirst for knowledge and research. The Snake House, which will be green, are for those with a cunning, resourceful streak. The yellow Badger House, will be for the loyal, the patient, the dedicated and the just.'

'So, you want to divide them to see who will be my fiercest fighters, my wisest advisors, my sharpest tacticians and my fairest mediators?' Harry asked after weighing each description in his head.

'Precisely.'

'But wouldn't I want them all to be strong and brave and intelligent?'

'Do not worry, Harry. They will be. It will just be that some are more predisposed to certain traits than others.'

'I understand.' Harry nodded. 'Mr Dumbledore?'

'Yes, Harry?'

'Which house will I belong to?'

'Well, we've decided that you won't have a house, Harry.'

'Why not?'

'We do not wish to favour any of the houses. You are seen as the figurehead of this army and you need to be equally bound to each faction and completely unbiased. You are a member of all of them, not none of them.'

'That doesn't sound as bad, I guess.' Harry smiled reluctantly. 'Are you going to be the headteacher?'

'Yes, most likely, Harry.'

'Do I have to call you Head Professor?'

'Professor will be fine, Harry.' He watched the boy, who was poised to ask yet another question. 'Yes, Harry?'

'How will the students be tested for attributes? Resourcefulness and intelligence sound ok, but how do you measure justness?'

'Simulations, Harry. Simulations to see how they react in various situations and that also give us an insight into the way their mind works. But enough of that, Harry. I have something to show you.'

Dumbledore led Harry to one of the few rooms that the boy hadn't managed to unearth during his residence there. It was small and cylindrical in shape and had a great amount of security measures set both outside and inside of it. There was one light, which illumined the centre of the room when Dumbledore flipped the switch. Bathed in this light, resting on a podium, was a beautifully crafted solar handgun.

'This solar gun was crafted by the late great Garrick Ollivander. There is only another of its kind in the world.'

Harry resisted the urge to stroke its sleek form, satisfying himself with examining it, watching the threads of poisonous green that thrived in the weak light. Suddenly he remembered.

'Voldemort. Voldemort has the other one,' he said, rather dispassionately. 'I saw it. He killed my parents with it.'

'This one is yours.'

Harry looked at it with different eyes. Longing but mistrustful, admiring yet loathing. 'Because I'm meant to be his equal?'

'No, because you deserve the best solar gun ever made, apart from its twin, of course.'

'Of course,' Harry said, taking it. It felt remarkably weightless in his hand, natural, organic. 'I like it. Voldemort has good taste,' he acknowledged grimly.

'Only when it comes to weapons. In beliefs, however, he is severely lacking.'

Harry nodded, gripping the handgun and leaving with Dumbledore.

…

Harry couldn't stop twitching. The chosen students were due today. He watched the first arrive in solar cars from his perch on the edge of the basin, his hoverboard resting across his lap. He was so nervous. Of all the students who would swarm the Great Hall, he would know three. Good Merlin, and then he would be introduced to them as some sort of leader, some sort of saviour, the Chosen One. It was at times like these that he wished he could be unchosen.

He glanced down and his uniform, already getting dusty from the orange rocks that covered the area. It was black and neat-fitting but left enough room for quick and precise movement. He wore dark trousers, a white shirt, a smart jacket with a beautiful phoenix insignia and a silken cravat tie. It was meant to be either red, yellow, green and blue, corresponding to the students' houses, but Harry's was a black, lined with gold. As if he needed to stand out more.

In a rush, he realised that he wanted to be in a house like the others. He wanted to belong to something, to just be another student, to not be differentiated, marked out, alone. He got up, sighing, he would probably have to be there to meet everyone. He activated his board, bounding into the air with a simple running leap and propelling himself over to the castle.

…

This was to be the most momentous day of her life ever…so far. Ever since she had heard of this schooling opportunity and eagerly applied, she had been researching both Hogwarts Castle and the Chosen One in great detail. There was plenty of information on the castle from descriptions of its Old Earthly Gothic-style architecture to details of its various ownerships; however, the boy remained an enigma. If he hadn't emerged from hiding to attend his parents' and godfather's funerals, she would have thought him dead in the fire that took his house so many years ago. She had read his funeral speech, published in full all over the Net, and it had touched her deeply. In short, she was anxious to begin school immediately and finally meet, perhaps even befriend, Harry Potter.

She was lucky to be here. Most of the children admitted she knew to be somehow associated with Albus Dumbledore's Order of the Phoenix. Sons, daughters, grandchildren, nieces and nephews, godchildren, children of friends. Others came from rich or connected families that held lofty positions. She, the child of two dentists from a minor surgery, had been chosen solely based on her intellect. This world of soldiers and skill and war and money felt so separate to her, no matter how much she read about it. She told herself that it didn't matter, that she was here to serve her planet, but part of her hoped that these stronger, smarter children would embrace her, not shun her for her intelligence.

There were two other girls and a boy in her car, the boy wearing Lion red and the two girls wearing Badger yellow. Why badgers were chosen as their emblem, she didn't know. They were hardly as intimidating or prestigious as snakes and lions. She smiled at them anyway, trying to look welcoming, and they responded just as shyly. The Lion boy was just as quiet but appeared more at ease, silent out of choice, not fear. They exchanged solemn nods before turning to admire the majesty of their new school.

This was her chance to be more than just Hermione Granger, the bookish busybody.

…

'This is your chance to win the Dark Lord's highest favour, for both yourself and your family.' Lucius Malfoy paced frantically behind his son, who watched him warily through the mirror's reflection. 'Win Harry Potter's friendship, integrate yourself as one of his closest allies, make him trust you as he trusts no other.'

'Yes, father,' Draco Malfoy said.

'Show him that you are a Malfoy and therefore the best. Tell him that the Chosen One should associate himself with nothing but the best.'

'I am the best,' Draco paraphrased.

'Do not let him forget that. Do not let him settle for anything less. Be the most powerful, the most influential, the smartest, the swiftest. He will have no choice but to want to be affiliated with you.'

'Yes, Father.'

'And when the Dark Lord returns. It will be we, the Malfoys, who will deliver Potter to him.'

'And the Malfoys shall be elevated forever,' Draco finished.

Looking to the mirror once more, he imagined a woman, his mother, kneeling beside him, smoothing his platinum blond hair into the most aristocratic style it could assume. He wasn't sure if this was how she would act – his father rarely talked of her – but it would be nice. It would be nice to see those large, grey eyes, the mirror of his own, gaze at him with the warmth and affection a mother's eyes should.

'Most importantly, do not get attached,' his father concluded. 'A Malfoy is the master of his emotions. He acts but is not affected. He continues his plan through until the end, cleanly and clinically. There are to be no trivial emotions.'

'No, Father,' Draco said. 'You don't have to worry about that. Because I hate Harry Potter.'

* * *

**AN: **Reviews are, as always, greatly encouraged.


	8. Chapter 8

His name was Neville Longbottom, he told her, son of not one but two members of the Order of the Phoenix. He was well-versed in most forms of fighting arts and had been avidly entered into the school by his grandmother, but he secretly preferred botany. Hermione was at a loss to his placement. His humble, quiet demeanour suited the Badgers or even her own house, the Ravens, not the boisterous crowd of red-tied Lions.

Her eyes hungrily raked the crowd without her fully realising it until Neville called her out. 'Who are you looking for? Harry Potter?'

Hermione blushed slightly. Was she really that obvious? 'I suppose that everyone here is at least slightly curious to see the fabled Chosen One.'

'That's true,' Neville said, expression indecipherable. 'Poor hom.'

'Have you met him, since your family's in the order?'

'My family hasn't really had a lot to do with his training.' Neville sounded uncomfortable, his eyes downcast. 'I haven't seen him since his parents' funeral.'

Hermione's mouth formed a silent "o" of solemnity. 'Were they close? Your parents and his?'

'Yeah, I guess, I mean I don't remember much.' He said this with an air of finality, closing down the topic. The silence between them didn't last for long as a tall, silver-haired man with winking eyes stepped up to the podium at the main hall.

'Oh, the head professor,' Hermione announced excitedly.

'_Oh, the head professor,'_ someone mimicked from behind her, and she sent a quick glare back at a group of sniggering children in green ties.

Draco shook his head from within his gang of Snakes, a handpicked selection of wellborn progeny. '_What_ is so exciting about an old coot with too much facial hair is beyond me,' he drawled and his companions were quick to agree, for it was known amongst all of them that the Malfoys were the most powerful and most esteemed by the Dark Lord.

Albus Dumbledore spoke, but Draco didn't care to listen. He wasn't here to have his ear talked off by the fool who led Order of the Phoenix, the man who stubbornly insisted that the Dark Lord wasn't truly gone, almost undermining his plan. Luckily, people like his father had control enough in the Ministry and the press to somewhat limit the damage Dumbledore was threatening to do.

'So, when are you planning to befriend the chosen Potter?' Zabini, Draco's oldest friend, asked him. Draco felt a swell of pride at the acknowledgement of his special task.

'Well, I'll have to find him first,' he said officiously, looking up and yet somehow looking down at his tall, dark friend. 'I just wish that blasted man would stop _talking._'

Parkinson and Greengrass tittered at this. _Girls_, thought Draco, but smiled regally at them.

'Suppose he's been warned off suspected Death Eaters,' Nott, ever the practical one, voiced.

Draco considered him. 'My family's name was cleared just as well as yours.'

'I didn't mean to imply anything about your family,' Nott said. 'It was just a suggestion.'

'All this fuss and we haven't even finished the introductory speech,' Zabini commented. 'I don't see why you need to say all of this when you both still support the Dark Lord anyway.'

'That's easy for you to say,' Draco murmured at a lower volume, indicating that Zabini should be doing the same. 'Your family never joined him.'

'Too much trouble.'

'Ever the fence-sitter.'

'Fences are surprisingly comfortable and give you a good view of both sides.'

Dumbledore was still talking, just about rounding up his introduction of the school teachers. Draco saw the semi-familiar face of Severus Snape up among them. His father respected him, had never said a bad word against him. It seemed that Draco had at least one ally among the staff. While he was thinking this, he noticed a shift in the mood of the surrounding students. They were more alert, glancing around excitedly, pointing at the door.

'Harry Potter,' Nott explained, 'is arriving apparently.'

Hermione gazed at the pair of double doors in senseless anticipation. Draco prepared himself to look upon the face of his new enemy. The doors opened, framing an eleven-year-old boy with messy hair.

He walked forward as if unaware of the multitude of gazes on him, and the crowd parted into two. Draco hadn't known what to expect. Perhaps the skinny, pathetic, snivelling boy that his father had often described with disdain. This boy, though average-sized, had the presence of a ten foot giant. His long-legged strides were precise and confident, his limbs and torso compact, his skin tanned from hours of exertion in the sun. His eyes, Draco actually physically turned to follow them; they were the purest green he had ever seen.

Hermione watched with equal parts envy and admiration as he strode by with his own brand of elegance. Once she had torn her gaze away from his emerald stare, she noticed how his uniform differed. His cravat was black and patterned gold, his emblem was not an animal of one of the four houses, but a phoenix. A phoenix, what did that mean? Which house was he in?

'He's cute,' said a Lion girl from behind her, her friend giggling in agreement. Hermione rolled her eyes. Really, girls were becoming so boy-focused, even at her fragile age. Although there was some sort of magnetism that surrounded him, even she could feel it.

Draco mentally scolded himself for staring, an act that neither Zabini nor Nott had missed, judging by their smirking faces. Parkinson and Greengrass were chattering excitedly, presumably about the stupid Chosen One, who now stood at the front of the hall.

Again, Dumbledore spoke and again, Draco ignored him, choosing instead to look at Potter and try and work up the loathing he had felt so strongly before. As if sensing his attempted ire, the boy gazed at him, green eyes impossibly bright. Draco glanced away quickly before recalling this as an act of submission. Cursing himself, he looked back up, hoping to match Potter's stare, only to see that the boy was already looking somewhere else. Draco looked decidedly sullen for the rest of the speech.

'Get back, Malfoy.' Zabini pulled him back as a section of ground, encapsulated by (Draco only just noticed) a long rectangle of coloured steel, opened in front of him. A long table, surrounded by benches, rose mechanically from this gap in the ground. Across the hall, three other tables were doing the same.

'Were you listening at all? The old man said to get back so our tables could come up.'

Draco looked to them and then behind them to see servants bustling about, taking serving domes off of the tables that lined the wall. That was a pretty decent quality banquet, even by Draco's standards.

Harry looked up at Dumbledore, eyes almost beseeching, and the man smiled. 'Yes, you may go down and see your friends.'

With a small smile, Harry leapt down from his podium and barrelled into Ron.

'Harry! M'god, that was some entrance.'

'It was embarrassing,' Harry replied, letting Ron lead him to sit at the nearest table.

'You looked completely _un_embarrassed though. Everyone was really impressed, com.' Ron grinned.

'I just tried not to fall over,' Harry said seriously. 'I don't see what's so impressive about that.'

'Harry!' A pair of voices assaulted him from behind, and Harry flinched, more out of battle instincts than actual fear.

'Well, if it isn't the terrible twosome,' Harry said, beginning to turn around to see them.

The twins attacked him from behind, hugging him, ruffling his hair and pinching his cheeks. 'If it isn't the famous Chosen One,' they chorused, attracting even more attention than Harry had gained alone.

'_The light of our school,_' Fred quoted.

'_The carrier of our hopes,'_ George added.

'_Our leader into a better future_,' they concluded together.

'Shut up!' Harry groaned. The students' eyes left a horrible prickling sensation on his skin. 'I can't believe Dumbledore _said _that.'

'Well, it's true, isn't it?' Harry and the twins looked towards the owner of the new voice. It was a friendly-looking, dark-skinned boy who smiled under their gazes. 'You're going to help us into a better future?'

'I guess, er, I mean, I can't promise anything.'

'Where is your conviction, Harry?' Fred snapped.

'You're meant to be the light of the school,' George chipped in.

'Maybe I'm not switched on?' Harry suggested.

Those who had heard him laughed, and Harry felt slightly better.

'Dean Thomas,' the boy said, holding out his hand. 'And I think the guy stuffing his face with pie is called Seamus Finnegan.'

'Fred and George Weasley,' George said, taking Dean's hand before Harry had the chance. 'We're his bodyguards.'

'Shut up,' Harry said again, dragging a hand down his face in embarrassment. He then realised that he hadn't heard from Ron in a while and looked up to see the boy looking unusually withdrawn. 'You all right, com?'

'Oh, yeah, yeah.' Ron's smile was half-hearted at best.

After a little thought, Harry bumped Ron's shoulder with his own. 'Hey, do you want to go and see what they've got at the banquet table?'

'Yeah.' Ron sounded more enthusiastic at this and they stood up together.

'The "bodyguards" can stay here and guard my spot,' Harry said.

'Aww.'

'No fair, Harry.'

'I'm hungry.'

Harry glanced at them quizzically. 'You know, you don't actually have to do as I say.'

'Oh, right, yeah.'

''Course.'

Harry and Ron, joined by the twins, Dean and Seamus (who had run out of food already), went to the banquet together, joking and jostling.

'So, I'm really surprised that they didn't sort you into the Snakes,' Ron said to the twins. 'You're "sneaky and cunning" all over.'

'At least, they try to be,' Harry said.

'Rude!' George shouted.

'No, the sim recognised the nobility of our hearts and the fire in our blood,' Fred said through a mouthful of food, pounding his chest for emphasis.

'What _I_ want to know is if they let you take the simulation together,' Harry said.

'No,' George said, 'weren't you the one making speeches about us not being the same person?'

'Apparently we got very similar results though.'

'We're both as bold as you can get.'

'That's why we're in the same house as the Chosen One.'

'Um,' Harry supposed that this was as good a moment as any, 'um, I'm not in the Lions.'

It took a while and several rapid, exchanged glances between the twins for the idea to compute. '_Whaaaat?_'

'Ssh,' Harry hushed urgently, glancing tensely from side to side, 'I said I'm not in your house.'

'Then which house are you in?' Ron asked incredulously. He tilted his head to the side, looking at the insignia on Harry's jacket. 'A bird. Are you a _Raven_?'

'That's not a raven, Ron. Since when were ravens orange?' Fred asked.

'Our little Ronnie's obviously not Raven material,' George said in a stage-whisper.

Ignoring their jibes for once, Ron addressed Harry. 'If you're not a Lion or a Raven, then what are you?'

'I'm, er, I'm not in any house,' Harry murmured.

'None of them?'

'No, I mean, I'm not meant to be. Each house has to have my equal support.'

'Oh.' Ron looked a bit disheartened at first, but gradually, a smile dominated his freckled face. 'Well, that means you're part of every house, so you're part of the Lions too. You can always sit at this table with us.'

'Thanks, Ron.' Harry grinned, unsure what else to add to fully express what this meant to him.

Ron took it at its surface value: 'S'all right, com.' And Harry supposed it was for now.

Dinner lasted for an hour before teachers swept down from the high table to assign dormitories. Each year group had their own general area for leisure, sleeping and bathing needs but they were all inter-house. Dumbledore encouraged interaction between the houses, stating that they were to be individual but not segregated. Despite the inter-house competition, they were all just pieces of a larger team.

'What babble,' Draco muttered to himself as he strutted towards the Great Hall's exit. He preferred to think of it as a hierarchy. The foolish Lions and Badgers would blunder into the warzone while the Snakes stayed behind the scenes, commanding and orchestrating their actions, the Ravens providing research on call. His house was obviously the best, the most essential, the most sophisticated, not that he was _that_ invested in his time here at this school. Hopefully, he would just win Potter's trust quickly, the Dark Lord would come back and Draco could go on to Durmstrang School as he had wanted.

To do that, he had to find Potter. Now was a good chance with the houses intermingling like this. He saw a familiar brown head of hair that resembled a thicket of bushes and identified its owner as that overly-excited Raven. He smirked when he saw that she was alone. That gormless Lion had finally had the sense to ditch her. He'd taunt her if he wasn't on such an important mission.

_There he is._ That unruly mop of hair stuck out easily. Draco surged forwards, flanked by his Snake posse. He almost missed the absence of his two cronies from childhood, Crabbe and Goyle, who would have cut easily through the crowd with their large frames. The two dolts had been far too incompetent to be admitted to the school, however. Even the Order of the Phoenix had standards, it seemed.

'Out of my way,' Draco ordered to the surrounding students, who parted hastily. Already acknowledging the future king of the school, Draco realised approvingly. The commotion caused Potter, who was talking to a group of undesirably ginger boys, to turn around and inflict those startling eyes on him.

Draco's bravado melted away almost immediately; he was immobilised. _Quickly_, _Draco, say something._ Those remarkable emeralds, the same green as his Snakes tie, blinked, giving Draco the briefest of respites. 'You're Harry Potter,' Draco burbled and mentally slapped his forehead.

Potter arched an eyebrow. 'Yes,' he said in an understated tone.

This infuriated Draco, and he was painfully aware of his Snake colleagues waiting expectantly behind him. While it wasn't a pleasant sensation, it allowed Draco to regain some of his self-importance. 'My name's Malfoy,' he announced, stressing the name, 'Draco Malfoy.'

The shortest ginger coughed amusedly from beside Harry, and the taller, identical ones shared cat-like grins. Draco scowled at them. They thought they were so wonderful because they hung around with the Chosen One. Why did Potter socialise with these idiots?

'Think my name's funny, do you? No need to ask who you are. My father told me all the Weasleys have red hair, freckles and more children than they can afford.'

The redheads were enraged. What surprised Draco more was that Harry seemed angry too, judging by the hard glittering of his eyes. Draco countered the cold stare with the small yet charming smile that he had practised in the mirror. 'You will soon find that some families are much better than others, Potter. You don't want to go making friends with the wrong sort. I can help you there.'

He held out his hand, a gentlemanly gesture of friendship. Potter would be a fool not to take it.

But he didn't. Instead: 'I think I can tell the "wrong sort" for myself, thank you,' he said coldly.

Malfoy's hand whipped back to his side as if speed could erase his rebuttal. Determined to maintain at least some dignity before the other Snakes, he hissed. 'I'd be careful, Potter. Unless you're a bit politer, you'll go the same way as your parents. They didn't know what was good for them either. Hang around with riff-raff like the Weasleys and it'll rub off on you.'

The smallest Weasel made to charge forward, but Potter stopped him with a hand on his arm. 'Is that a threat, Malfoy?' Potter asked softly.

Draco paled slightly. Such antagonising words would only wedge the two boys further apart, endangering his father's plan. 'A warning,' he countered, sparing a derisive glance to the three ginger Weasels, 'and rightfully placed.'

'You, on the other hand, Malfoy, seem to be very misplaced. These people are my friends, and they don't need a rich family or a pretentious name to be better than you,' Potter said before marching away, three grinning, freckled boys in his wake.

Draco felt horribly chilled, but his cheeks were hot, a pink tinge decorating his pale, patrician skin.

'Well,' Zabini said, 'that went swimmingly.'

'Oh, shut up, Zabini. I hated Potter before anyway,' Draco spat. 'Now I've seen what an arrogant void-brain he is, I want even less to do with him.'

'One of you came across as an arrogant voider in that conversation, and it wasn't Potter,' Nott muttered, but not loudly enough for Draco to hear. The young Malfoy was in quite a dreadful mood.

_Stupid Saint Potter._ _He thinks he's so wonderful and noble, supporting those Weasley urchins. He thinks those Weasels are _better_ than me? I'll show him. I'll prove to him how superior the Malfoys really are. _

In his anger, Draco bumped into a table and had to be steered away by other Snakes. Draco hadn't even been roomed with Potter. Zabini had, a fact that made him gnash his teeth. But the thing that angered him the most was how those green eyes stuck in his mind for far too long, and despite his intense hatred, some part of him had really wanted to be stupid Potter's friend.

…

Harry couldn't believe his luck. People liked him, admired him. He remembered a time when other children were an anomaly, but he had talked to so many people today, all his age and eager to meet him. Of course, it was all a little overwhelming, and most of the flattery embarrassed him, and some of the girls' stares filled him with irrational, hunted fear, but apart from that, Harry felt elated. He felt normal.

In his dormitory, there were four other boys, each from a different house. Harry supposed that this was a tactical move to ensure each house equal favour. The Lion was Ron, the Raven was Terry Boot, who seemed friendly enough, the Badger was Ernie MacMillan, who struck Harry as rather pompous but affable with it, and the Snake was Blaise Zabini, an aloof boy who was even taller than Ron.

'You chemmed up about tomorrow, Harry?' Ron asked, visibly buzzed despite the late hour.

'I still don't really know what to expect,' Harry murmured.

'Well, I don't expect you to have much to worry about, mate,' Ernie said reassuringly. 'You'll be showing everyone how it's done in lessons, I'll bet.'

Blaise Zabini snorted softly from his bed on the furthest side of the room.

'You have something you'd like to say, Zabini?' Ron challenged, but Harry put an allaying hand on his shoulder.

'C'mon, Ron. You heard what Head Professor Dumbledore said. We're all a team here.'

'Then he needs to cooperate too.'

'Give it more than one night,' Terry said with a note of exasperation.

Harry slid off of his bed and, to everyone's surprise, held a hand out to the Snake boy. When the dark-skinned boy looked at it questioningly, Harry said: 'We're all pretty different here, but I don't see why we shouldn't get along because of that. What do you say? Let's make these obligatory hours spent together as straightforward as possible.'

Harry was sure that the boy was considering rejecting the hand, as Harry had rejected Malfoy's. Harry had seen them together, wondered how close they were, if Zabini had any loyalties to the rude blond. Finally, Zabini took the hand and Harry mentally relaxed.

'All right,' Zabini said before glaring scornfully at Ron and getting ready for bed.

Ron spluttered: 'Did you see that, Harry? The spit looked at me like I'm from the slums.'

'The what?' Harry asked amusedly.

'Don't you know what…?' Ron began, before remembering Harry's confinement to the castle. 'Oh, well I'm definitely not from there!'

Terry and Ernie laughed and Harry cracked a smile, not quite sure what to say to that.

…

Hermione sighed. She was sharing a room with two Snakes, another pair of poor representatives for a house which she had begun to dislike as a whole – and rather irrationally too, she scolded herself. It could just be that one group of Snakes that had laughed at her before Dumbledore's speech and had later actually dared to confront Harry Potter, who she still hadn't managed to speak to, which was a great shame. From his measured responses to that pale, pointy, awful Snake leader, she gauged that he was intelligent, or at least well-educated, and willing to defend his friends.

Another rally of grating titters pulled her out of her thoughts. The two Snakes, Daphne Greengrass and Pansy Parkinson she remembered, were giggling away about petty things. Really, the eve of their first day of school and they didn't even speculate on lessons and teachers. All they talked about was fashion, other students and Harry Potter's eyes. It was almost as if they didn't even care about their education.

Hermione looked at the others girls, Hannah Abbot of the Badgers and Lisa Turpin, a fellow Raven. They both kept to themselves, though Hermione had tried to approach them earlier with added zeal, knowing that she had the chance to craft a new reputation for herself. Neither girl, not even the Raven, had wanted to discuss books or studies, much to Hermione's disappointment.

'And then I reminded her who got in and who failed the entrance test,' Parkinson finished her story smugly.

'As if Bulstrode could ever make it here. I bet she couldn't even get into the _Badgers_,' Daphne agreed with a snicker.

'Excuse me,' Hermione said.

'What?' Parkinson snapped, and Hermione was suddenly struck by her resemblance to a pug.

'Well,' Hermione gathered her courage, 'well I was wondering when you were planning to go to sleep, actually. It's our first day at school tomorrow, and that's rather important, you know.'

They laughed at her, very unkindly. 'Are you actually serious?'

'You should feel privileged to be a part of this school,' Hermione said. 'This is a place for learning.'

'Well obviously for you, since you won't be getting much else out of it, with that bushy rats' nest on your head,' Greengrass, who was blonde and precociously pretty, said.

Hermione turned away from her, masking her stung expression with a cloud of hair. She delved for her soltab and disappeared behind her copy of "Hogwarts Castle: A History", deciding that she might as well take advantage of the light while the two Snakes insisted on keeping it on.

…

The first year common room was restless the next morning. There were forty students in the year in total and about thirty currently lounging about, all watching a certain dormitory door with various degrees of obviousness. The door to the Chosen One's room finally opened, and Harry's roommates drifted out, each going to join the friends they had made at their house tables. Potter himself was nowhere to be seen.

'Zabini,' Draco hissed as the boy sauntered over, 'did Potter say anything?'

'Like what?' the boy responded flatly as their group headed to the main hall.

'You know, interesting things that…that we can use against him.'

'You have no idea what you're talking about, do you? Did you tell your father that you failed to befriend Potter yet?'

'That was one conversation, Zabini. I can still turn it around.'

'I'd say you obliterated any chances pretty well, insulting his friends.'

'He could do better.'

'Draco, I've spent the whole evening with them. Harry and that uncouth Weasley boy are very close. If you want to make friends with him, you'll have to be nice to Weasley too. Try not calling him a weasel for a start.' Zabini smiled despite himself.

'Why don't you befriend him, then? Spy on him for me.'

'No, I refuse to get involved,' Zabini said offhandedly. 'You got yourself into this Death Eater mess, you can get yourself out. Besides, Potter's all right.'

'All right?' Draco whispered indignantly.

'Yes, not half as bothersome as you set him up to be.'

'So, you won't help me?'

'You're a Malfoy. Malfoys don't need anyone but themselves.'

'Could you at least tell me where Potter is? He wasn't even with the Weasel.'

'Where Potter is? How should I know? He was gone before I even woke up.'

…

Harry eased himself into a series of cool-down stretches and surveyed the vast tract of grass. He had managed a couple of extra laps of this field today, but he didn't know whether to credit it to his increasing stamina or his adrenaline. Since he had awoken at five in the morning, he had been a ball of restless energy and realised that he'd be completely useless in the coming lessons unless he blew off some steam. Leaning against a tree on the outskirts of the forest that encroached the field, Harry stretched his calves out.

What was the time? Could he fit in some of Mad-Eye's drills or perhaps some kihon? Harry retrieved his little solar tablet from his pocket and held it in a patch of light for optimum performance.

'Time,' Harry said.

'Six hours fifteen,' was the tablet's reply.

Breakfast was in two hours. Harry still had loads of time. He would go over some kihon techniques, get himself into the right mindset for school. He would _not_ awol his training and go flying in the crater. Still, Harry's gaze flitted to the area where grass gave way to dust and he knew the rocky ground dipped into that cavernous basin, perfect for flying.

He came out of the shade of the trees, the sun kissing his skin a deeper tan. Harry squinted, not because of the sudden exposure, but because he thought he saw a figure moving about on the opposite side of the grounds. Despite having run for a solid hour, Harry sprinted now, curious to see who besides him was awake so early.

The figure, a boy Harry determined as he drew closer, only noticed him when Harry was about fifteen feet away. The boy stopped whatever he was doing, a fast combination of somewhat familiar motions, took one look at Harry, and tried to back off.

_Oh, no you don't,_ Harry thought. 'Hey, wait.' He closed the gap and clapped a hand on the boy's tense shoulder. 'Wait a moment.'

The boy reluctantly turned to him, and Harry's brow furrowed. There was something familiar about the dark hair, the small build, the overly-fleshy face that hinted at him once being chubby.

'I know you. I've seen you before,' Harry muttered.

'I don't think so,' the boy replied, once again trying to leave. It took more than usual for Harry to hold on. For a boy of lesser height, he was rather strong.

'No, I have… My parents' funeral. Yeah, that's it. I saw you. You were with your parents, and…and your mum hugged me and told me she was sorry. You were there, I remember.'

'You remember something from that long ago?' the boy asked with a strangled tone, a tone that said that he hadn't forgotten either.

'It stayed with me. It just stuck out as really strange, that's all. What's your name?'

'Um.'

Harry really didn't know why the boy was so jittery. Was it his Chosen One status? Was he being rude? Too forceful? He still wasn't really sure how the minds of other children worked yet. 'Sorry.' Harry let go, scratching his hair sheepishly. It really needed to be cut again, he noted absently. Whenever any barber tried to discipline it into a respectable, military haircut, it grew back mutinously fast.

'I'm Neville Longbottom,' the boy finally said in a rush.

'Longbottom. I know that name. Moony, er, that's Professor Lupin mentioned it now and again. Your parents used to work with mine, didn't they?'

For some reason, that made Neville flinch. Harry frowned. Maybe he should give in, leave what he didn't understand alone. 'Neville, why are you so nervous?' he asked anyway.

'I'm not, I'm just…' Neville looked away, and Harry was sure he had seen guilt. Guilt, what would Neville have to be guilty about? 'I'm just sorry for your lot.'

'Oh,' Harry said. He was fairly used to pity, but this ran deeper. Just like Neville's mother's apology had. Neither explained why Neville was so hesitant to be around him.

'Listen, I've finished up here,' Neville said, although Harry was pretty sure that the boy had just arrived. 'So, I'll leave you to it.'

The boy began to dart away, and Harry watched him go, completely at a loss. 'Neville,' he called after him, 'see you around school.'

Neville didn't reply and, if anything, sped up.

'Ok then,' Harry murmured to himself. Maybe he would just go flying after all. He headed off to the crater with a stilted gait.

* * *

**AN: **Since this AU is meant to be set centuries into the forseeable future, I tried to update their language a bit. It is so much harder than it looks! Feel free to tell me whether or not it (or anything else in the chapter/fic) was effective.


	9. Chapter 9

Harry felt wonderfully refreshed after flying and walked into the Great Hall feeling buoyant. Neville Longbottom was an enigma, but Harry now found himself determined to befriend him. He was fairly certain that the boy was trained, judging from the fluid way he had been moving. Perhaps they could be training partners. They could maybe even spar.

With these sanguine thoughts, Harry piled food from the buffet table onto his plate and made his way over to a waving Ron. He was shocked when a great, silver beard blocked his path.

'Good morning, Harry.' Dumbledore smiled down at him.

'Professor,' Harry said slowly.

'I'm afraid that you cannot sit with Mr Weasley at the Lion table every meal.'

'Why?'

'House equality, Harry. As you acknowledged yourself, you are houseless and therefore not able to show particular bias towards any house. How would it look to the other students if you sat at the Lion table every day?'

'It would look like I'm a Lion.' Harry sighed resignedly. 'Or at least that I prefer them over the others. So you want me to sit at a different table?'

'That would be marvellous, Harry. How about if you sat with a different house every day? You would do well to befriend as many students as you can.'

'Yes, sir.'

'Very good. Now, since you sat with the Lions yesterday,' Harry opened his mouth to protest, 'you can sit with the Ravens today.'

'Yes, sir,' Harry said, slightly miserably.

He went over to Ron, watching enviously as he, the twins, Dean and Seamus laughed and bantered, and explained the situation as best as he could. Ron nodded, sending him off with a sympathetic pat on the back.

The most familiar person he saw on the Raven table was Terry Boot, who was talking rather animatedly with two other boys. Trying not to look too terrified, Harry approached. Terry's two friends and quite a few others stared unabashedly at him, which did nothing for Harry's confidence, but Terry smiled.

'Harry, what brings you here?' And Harry heard a faint tinge of pride in his voice at being able to address him so.

'Um, do you mind if I sit here?'

''Course not! Yeah, go ahead.' He shuffled over and Harry sat next to him. 'Harry, this is Anthony Goldstein and Michael Corner and guys, well, you don't really need to be told, right?'

Harry decided to introduce himself anyway. 'Harry Potter,' he said, reaching over the table to shake hands with each boy in turn.

'Stellar!' Michael grinned.

'Nice to meet you,' Anthony Goldstein said.

The atmosphere at this table was a lot more tranquil and far less rowdy; Harry had to admit to himself that it was a nice change of scenery. He also discovered that he mixed in with the Ravens as well as he did with the Lions if he brought a different side to his personality forward. Smiling carefully, he joined in with the conjectures of what their lessons would be like, assuring them that he was just as in the dark as they were, but still regaling them with information about the professors he knew and their teaching styles. They sucked up his words with an unbridled curiosity that made Harry smile.

At some point, a unified groan came from a place farther down the table, drawing Harry's attention. A girl with frizzy, brown hair, as wild as his own Harry mused ruefully, was talking hyperactively to her rather uninterested neighbours.

'And my score was 53% Raven, 3% Badger, 12% Snake and 32% Lion, isn't that odd? I never really considered myself that brave before, but then it makes you wonder, doesn't it? I mean, I've always focused on my intelligence, almost defined myself by it, and gave little thought to my other attributes. But that simulation was fascinating. I wonder if there's a way to find out more about how it works, I mean, there's got to be. All I know is that apparently, having an aptitude for all the houses is rare, even though the Badger percentage is quite small. Usually houses you don't suit are a decimal value between 0 and 1, but…'

'Bloody hell,' Harry said, quoting Ron. 'She talks a lot, doesn't she?'

'That's Hermione Granger,' Michael told him in a weary tone. 'She's "_so excited to be here"_.'

'She's…intense,' Terry added.

'More like a scoffer and a net-brain and really pushy,' Anthony scowled darkly.

'Ant's a bit upset because she corrected him on chemical compounds,' Terry told Harry confidentially.

'It was none of her business,' Anthony defended. 'We weren't even talking to her. She just barged in!'

His rant would have continued if the chatter in the Great Hall wasn't quieting down. Dumbledore was standing up at the teacher's table, commanding silence with a benevolent sweep of the hall. 'I'm afraid that the time for learning is upon us.'

He was met by equal amounts of groans and excited whispers.

'Pull out the solar tablets that each of you received upon arrival, and your weekly schedules will appear on them.'

Harry had heard that all students would receive soltabs from Dumbledore, and most of the Ravens dutifully extracted theirs from their schoolbags. Peering more closely at Terry's, he saw that the rectangular tablet was bigger than the one he himself carried in his pocket. Elsewhere in the Great Hall, the majority of Lions were excusing themselves from their tables to go and fetch their solar tablets from their dorms. The girl called Hermione Granger tutted at them before turning her attention to her tablet's screen.

'Solar chemistry with the Badgers, Battle History with the Snakes, Basic Physical Training with the Lions,' Terry was reading out. 'Mathematics…hmm, no other name, must be just Ravens. What've you got Harry?'

Harry brought out his own smaller tablet, not quite sure what to expect, and unlocked it with the pad of his thumb. There was his schedule, and Harry enlarged it with an outward pinch, thinking that he would have to get a tablet with a bigger screen like the others.

'Um,' it showed him the lessons, locations and professors, much like Terry's, but listed two houses instead of one for each, _Because I'm not part of either_. 'I've got Duelling with the Lions and Snakes and then…and then military science with third year Ravens and Snakes…um, then Basic Physical Training with you and the Lions and marksmanship with second year Badgers and…'

'Hang on, Harry? Second and third years too?'

'It seems so.'

Why should he be surprised? He wasn't really a member of any of the houses, next they'd be telling him that he wasn't really a first year either.

'Well, good luck,' Terry murmured.

'You too,' Harry replied, 'and watch out for the Chemistry teacher, Snape. He harbours grudges very easily, or maybe that's just against me.'

Terry nodded his thanks before bidding him a goodbye: 'See you at lunch.'

Harry headed off in the other direction to find Ron. The smile on his face waned slightly when he saw the redhead, laughing effortlessly with a gaggle of Lions, all matching pink faces and crimson cravats. He almost wasn't sure if he should approach and ruin the atmosphere, but Ron spotted him before he could decide.

'Harry! Where you off to now?'

'Duelling with Professor McGonagall.'

'Me too.'

They grinned brilliantly at each other, and Harry finally remembered that Ron was his best and oldest friend. 'What are you waiting for then?'

'Race you.'

'Obviously, I'll win, Ron. I've lived here for most of my life.'

'Who cares? I've got longer legs. You can count my tail-flares, Harry!'

They tore out of the hall, passing an affronted Hermione Granger and laughing all the way to Duelling Room. Being the only members of the class who actually knew the layout of the school, they were waiting outside class for a good few minutes before the stragglers came through in trickles, noses glued to the school maps shown on their soltabs.

'Ron, hom, that was dark when you ran off and left us. We don't know this school like you,' Dean complained as they trailed down the corridor towards him.

Ron just laughed. 'Sorry.'

Harry tried to look relaxed, smiling at the approaching Lion boys, but while he liked Dean well enough, he hardly knew Seamus, and Neville seemed to be sickened by his presence.

'Harry Potter?' Seamus said. 'Seamus Finnegan, pleased to meet you. My mum didn't really want me to come to this school. She doesn't think You-Know-Who's actually coming back, you know. But I believe you and Dumbledore. Most of us do.'

'Um, thanks.' Harry smiled uncertainly.

'Of course you do,' Ron said. 'Dumbledore told us all the reasons and they make sense. Besides, Dumbledore's the smartest man on the planet. Right, Harry?'

'He's definitely up there,' Harry acknowledged.

The Lion girls didn't talk to him, preferring to hover a few metres away and talk _about_ him. One was pushed forwards by the others and approached Harry, glancing back and giggling over her shoulder. 'Hi, I'm Lavender Brown.'

'Hi,' Harry said, reaching out to shake hands, but Lavender backed away squealing, running to the safety of her friends. 'What just happened?'

'Girls, weirdest creatures on the planet,' Dean said knowledgeably.

'Weirder than Blast-Ended Skrewts?' Harry asked.

'Blast-ended _whats_?'

'You don't want to know,' Harry said, grimacing as he recalled one of Hagrid's more disastrous choices of pets.

'So the Chosen Potter decided to grace us with his presence, did he?'

'Blast off, Malfoy,' Ron said without even needing to turn around.

'It's my lesson too, Weasley. If you could read, you'd see that the schedule says "Lions _and_ Snakes". You're a _Lion,_ and I'm a _Snake_,' he said, his drawl growing increasingly condescending with new sentence. 'On that note, Potter, what on Five are _you_ meant to be?'

Harry was faintly annoyed by the whole display, but beneath it there was an undercurrent of truth. Harry wasn't a Lion or a Snake. He didn't belong to a house. And for a person like Malfoy, surrounded by his band of green Snakes, to highlight this was more than just aggravating, it was isolating.

'Harry's a Phoenix,' Ron said, proud of himself for finally identifying the bird on Harry's crest.

Malfoy looked slightly thrown, probably not expecting that answer, or indeed, any answer. By the time he had formed a retort, the classroom door opened, intercepting him. Professor McGonagall, a woman that Harry had encountered once or twice and deeply feared yet respected, emerged. She silenced them with a brief command and compelled them into a neat line with the power of her gaze alone before letting them enter.

The room had been vastly transformed since the last time Harry had seen it. The cavernous space was divided into two. The first half was a classroom with the obligatory desks, chairs and a large screen at the front, which, upon entering, lay to their left. Most of this area was sectioned off by glass apart from the set of stairs in the centre that led down into the second half of the room; an amphitheatre.

At McGonagall's bidding, the students went to seat themselves. Harry was moving off with Ron to try and find a good seat together when McGonagall stopped him. 'Not you, Mr Potter.'

Again. Again he was pulled away from his friends and thrust in front of everyone. He stood stiffly beside McGonagall as she began her lecture on everything from safety rules to descriptions of the duelling sabres to her expectations of the class. And he wondered why he was up here, being looked at, when he could be over there, sitting in the seat beside Ron that Neville Longbottom had unknowingly usurped.

Draco was listening with surprising intent as McGonagall talked for a good portion of an hour. Duelling was definitely one of the more interesting subjects on the class schedule, and he was sure, what with his quick wits and reflexes, that he would soon rise to the top of the class. Of course, he had never been let near a solar sabre before – they were too heavy and hazardous for a child – but he had practised often enough with mock-ups.

McGonagall finished her lengthy speech, and Draco perked up even further. She was commanding them to stand at the edge of the classroom, beside the glass partition, so that they were effectively looking down on the arena as if from a balcony. Finally! Some actual duelling. He would make Potter regret discarding him like last year's hoverboard.

But it didn't turn out that way. Not at all. After a murmured conversation with McGonagall, Potter descended the stairs, untying his cravat as he went. He shrugged his jacket aside next, leaving just his shirt, and selected one of the solar sabres from a line-up on the wall. To Draco's chagrin, the boy handled it with ease, twirling it now and again as if he had a nervous tic.

Next, McGonagall introduced a man that Draco didn't know but was informed was from the Order of the Phoenix and named Frank Longbottom.

'Eh, that's your dad, isn't it?' Draco heard the Weasel whisper from somewhere to his right. Whoever Longbottom's offspring was didn't reply loudly enough for Draco to hear.

The man also descended the stairs, but he had his own solar sabre, glinting in his belt, and he drew it with practised skill.

'There will be no handling of the solar sabres today, I'm afraid. That will come with the next lesson. Do not expect fantastic results immediately. Duelling is a difficult art to perfect, and the use of solar sabres requires yet more resilience and finesse. However, if you look below, Mr Potter and Mr Longbottom will show you what you can achieve.'

She nodded to them, they nodded back, and Draco fumed. Trust Potter to get the spotlight, to be made the archetype for the other students to follow. All he could hope now was that Potter was defeated swiftly and terribly.

Harry looked up at the Order man, who was at least a foot taller, and they bowed symmetrically. The solar sabres seemed to ignite in their hands, flashing with an odd chemical sheen as the two combatants began to circle each other. Draco watched Potter's face closely, searching it for fear but finding only a cool form of wariness.

Harry attacked first, putting Longbottom on the defensive, but the balance soon shifted until it wasn't immediately clear who had the upper hand. They were both immensely skilled, Draco grudgingly acknowledged. Longbottom had the advantage of height and strength, but Harry was light and speedy and, with his accomplished footwork, made himself a hard target to strike. The children to either side of him were silent as stone, and Draco had to remind himself to breathe now and again after a particularly complex rally.

With a sudden, clever stroke, Harry disarmed Longbottom, and in the next second, the solar blade was centimetres from the man's throat, crackling dangerously. It was an unusual sight, a boy holding a flashing weapon to a grown man's neck. 'Do you yield?' he asked calmly, his breathing only slightly irregular.

'I do,' the man said.

Harry nodded and his blade switched hands so that he could engage the defeated in a handshake.

'That was remarkable swordsmanship for a grown adult,' Mr Longbottom smiled. 'Let alone an eleven year old boy.'

'Thank you,' Harry replied, returning the smile. 'Sirius Black was one of the best. I learnt everything from him.' At this, the smile soured slightly before completely falling from his face.

Mr Longbottom nodded as if he understood, placing his other hand on the boy's shoulder as he had done so many years ago. 'You do right by him. He would be so proud.'

Draco didn't know what they were talking about; he didn't even know that they knew each other. He was soon distracted by the buzzing of the Lions and, to a lesser extent, the Snakes as they discussed the fight. A Lion boy seemed to be the centre of attention.

'Yes, that's my dad,' the boy was saying uncomfortably.

'He's tough!'

'Forget that. Did you see Harry?'

'Ron, you know him. Did you know he could fight like that?'

'He's had all sorts of training,' Ron announced importantly. 'He does martial arts too and shoots guns, and he can do a double backwards flip. He even taught me some.'

The surrounding students were vocal in their approval and had to be silenced with a glare from McGonagall. 'Well done, Mr Potter,' she said into the peace as Harry clambered back up the stairs.

He was assaulted by his classmates, all plying him with rapid fire questions. Draco almost felt sympathy for him at the moment, though it had jealousy and dislike to compete with. And admiration. Of course that had to crop up. He admired Harry Potter. It made Draco feel slightly nauseated to think about it.

The class ended with inevitable homework, which was to recount the safety rules for solar sabres so they didn't maim themselves before they even started facing their opponents. Harry was glad for her brief, no-nonsense dismissal as he headed to the door, hoping to slip out intact and onto his next lesson. As usual, luck was not on his side.

'That was _stellar_, Harry!' Seamus crowed, punching his arm.

'Yeah, com,' Dean added. 'I knew you'd be champ, but still this is a whole new level.'

'I won a duel,' Harry said simply.

'Against an _Order_ member, Harry. And the Order members are always the best,' Ron countered.

'Are we going to be able to fight like that?'

'You dosed on Confundium, Shay?'

'The whole point of that duel was to show you what you could achieve,' Harry quietly pointed out.

'Yeah, but be real here. We wouldn't be able to fight like _that_. I mean, it's not like we're crazy gifted or anything like Harry.'

Harry actually blushed at this. 'I'm not that gifted.' In the face of three sceptical stares, Harry persisted: 'I'm… I'm not. I mean, all my life, that's all I've known. Practise, practise, practise; subject after subject, discipline after discipline. Anyone could do that if they had the training I had. Any kid who's been training as hard as I have could do what I can do. So, you see, I'm not gifted or special, or anything. Anyone could be me.'

'Ah shut up, Harry. Don't ruin our fun,' Seamus said good-naturedly enough.

'Yeah, what if we _want_ to believe you're special?' Dean asked. 'You're meant to be our leader here. You're meant to be able to do things we can't do. That's a stellar thing, Harry. The people at this school are pretty smart, you know, not just the Ravens. And smart people don't follow "Colin"s into battle.'

'Duly noted,' Harry replied with a small smile. 'All right, my next class is over this way, so…'

'Wait, Harry? You're not going to the next class with us?'

'No, Ron,' Harry said, smile turning rueful.

'Oh, right, yeah, 'course. Makes sense. Should've figured. Um, see you at…' He was going to say break, Harry knew, or lunch perhaps, but thought better of it. 'Um, well, see you in the common room I guess, after school.'

'Yeah,' Harry said unhappily. 'I guess.'

He arrived at Third Year Military Science in a considerably bad mood and loitered behind his looming classmates, determined not to be noticed. This plan could only go so well.

Immediately, the third years were nudging each other (though a lot more discreetly than Lions) and whispering, the name "Harry Potter" on each of their tongues. Thankfully, this lessened when the door opened and their teacher emerged. He was portly, balding, and reminded Harry strongly of a walrus.

His beady eyes, perfectly honed to detect the extraordinary, found Harry instantaneously. 'Harry Potter, I am honoured.' He waltzed forward with the speed of a much slimmer man, and shook the boy's hand enthusiastically.

'Thank you, professor,' Harry said quietly, noticing how some watched him curiously and others rolled their eyes.

It took a while for the professor (Slughorn, Harry reminded himself) to turn his attention to the rest of the class and gesture them in. Harry wanted to take a seat at the back, but Slughorn insisted that he sit at the front, all the better to be seen. Harry wondered when all of this special attention would die down.

Despite his superficial greeting, Slughorn proved himself to be a good teacher and a cunning tactician who met particularly talented students (namely everybody) with endless zeal. They would play simulations on the interactive tabletops, structuring battalions, artillery and aircraft in a struggle against the computer-generated enemy.

'Very good, Harry m'boy,' Slughorn said with ready fondness when Harry defeated a level of the simulation. _Ron_ _would be good at this_, Harry thought, dwelling on their chess games. _He would be better than me._ He hoped that Slughorn would realise this. After all, Ron was hard-pressed to find praise within his own family sometimes.

The most interesting part of the class, Harry decided, was the people. It was interesting to see the different ways in which the Ravens and Snakes approached the task as if their whole behaviour was dictated by the house they were sorted into. The Ravens were focused, studied each option carefully, drew upon extensive lists of background knowledge. The Snakes were sly, more inclined to surprise and trick, to lie low and then strike with deadly accuracy. Their turns were usually much shorter.

While the Snakes had their turn, the Ravens waylaid Harry, that unbridled inquisitiveness shining through. They talked amicably about books they had read and subjects that interested them. The Snakes, Harry was more wary of, having only encountered Malfoy and Blaise Zabini as prime examples.

They shot him critical glances and guarded stares before one of them braved the distance and sat beside him.

'Adrian Pucey,' he said, offering Harry a hand to shake. 'I saw your manoeuvres back there on the simulation. You know what you're doing. Who taught you?'

'Various members of the Order.' Harry shrugged. 'And you and the other Snakes? It's clear that none of you are novices in the world of strategy.'

At this, the older boy smiled in approval, glancing at a grinning, coffee-skinned girl with neat black hair.

'Well spotted, Potter,' the girl said, moving to lean against the table on Harry's other side. She walked with a grace, Harry noted, that had been trained into her. 'Azra Shafiq,' was the name on the other end of the proffered handshake. 'I must say that I'm pretty impressed with you so far. Reckon we should inform him about us Snakes, Pucey?'

Pucey nodded slowly. 'Yes, why not? Do you know your history, Potter? About how the exodus from the Whole Earth, while led by Merlin the Guide, was facilitated by certain wealthy families and influential figures and how they were later honoured by being awarded positions of power here, on the ES system?'

'Yes.'

'And how some of these came to form the House of Forebears, an esteemed council that works alongside the Ministry to make many significant decisions about our society?'

'My tutors and I have skimmed it, yes,' Harry said, grateful for his unusual education if it meant that he could understand this steady influx of words.

A few of the Snakes sniggered in amusement at this. Harry wasn't sure if they were laughing with him or at him.

'Well, a good measure of the Snakes (not all, but most) are from these families. We're all educated in the subtleties of stratagems and politics.'

'So the simulation placed you all in the house of cunning, the Snakes,' Harry surmised, eyes wide with sudden realisation.

Again, Pucey smirked with approval. 'That's right. Explains things, doesn't it?'

Yes, more than Pucey had initially intended. Harry recollected that look of derision the Snake Zabini had shot at Ron last night. Ron, whose physical features and ratty pyjamas had outlined his family and its poverty. And Malfoy's condescending remarks about the Weasleys. Now he thought about it, while he had seen tentative bonds form between three of the houses in the common room, the Snakes had kept to themselves.

'Do Snakes happen to hold any disregard for families not as well off as theirs? Or is that only certain members?'

'It depends on the family,' another girl volunteered. 'Some are more concerned with the purity of their bloodlines than others.'

'Like the Malfoys?' Harry asked.

It seemed that everything he said was destined to be met by that same smirk of cool regard.

'The Malfoys are a very powerful family but also one of the most bigoted,' Pucey said. 'There is strong evidence that they were very involved with You Know Who,' he added, watching for Harry's reaction.

Knowing this, Harry didn't betray anything like anger, smirking coolly as if he were a Snake. 'I didn't much like the son anyway.'

Some of the Snakes laughed, others looked wary or slightly ruffled. Harry looked among them and weeded out the Malfoy sympathisers.

'I don't think many will like him once the little fool is done,' Shafiq said, tone light and joking enough. 'He's very vocal for an heir, very good at making enemies instead of allies.'

'Some people will stay by him regardless because of his name,' Pucey snorted dismissively.

'Well, that's his only creditable attribute right now,' Shafiq replied, and Harry grinned in amusement. The girl was right.

'I don't think most of the student body are very taken with us Snakes anyway,' another boy said uncaringly.

Harry had suspected as much from his minimal chance at observation, but he wanted to hear the reasons from one of them. 'Why do you think that is?'

'We're sickly, slimy, poisonous snakes,' Shafiq hissed, wiggling her fingers at a giggling Harry.

'Snakes aren't slimy,' Harry protested.

'But we are, apparently. Our values unsettle them. Ambition, cunning, thirst for power. Not as noble as bravery or loyalty,' Pucey mused. 'And the fact that most of us seem to look down on them probably makes them feel second-rate.'

'Probably,' Harry agreed, mock-seriously.

'You,' Pucey grinned, shoving Harry's shoulder in the most un-Snake-like way.

'And with people like Malfoy serving as our ambassadors, we can say goodbye to any positive publicity,' Shafiq said airily.

'That doesn't seem to bother you very much,' Harry pointed out.

'Let's just say that this inter-house fraternisation that the head professor is championing isn't something that the Snakes particularly care for.' When Harry frowned, Shafiq continued. 'That isn't to say that we dislike members of the other houses, just that we don't find it essential to talk to them.'

'I see,' said Harry.

* * *

**AN: **Yes, "bloody hell" still made it into the pseudo-futuristic vernacular. It is an irreplaceable part of Harry Potter culture!

Thank you, Pawsrule. Harry and Hermione's relationship will be slow-burning, but hopefully you'll find it worth it in the end.

Fun fact: In canon, the Shafiq family is one of the "Sacred Twenty-Eight", the 28 truly pureblood lines according to some bigoted book. I wonder what happened to them. Also, Azra Shafiq used to be a boy called Qadir. I much prefer her as a girl!

Reviews are always welcome.


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter Ten calls for a** Disclaimer refresher: **I do not own Harry Potter... That is all.

* * *

Harry was late to morning break, having been engaged in conversation with the Snakes to the point where he forgot time. They humoured him and his different ideals and, to some extent, accepted him into their selective group. Particular Snakes, such as Adrian Pucey and Azra Shafiq, Harry could see becoming valued friends.

Harry and the Raven table were like ships passing in deep space. He only got back for enough time to stuff some sort of meat pie into his mouth before heading off to his next lesson with Terry.

'Basic Physical Training,' Michael muttered, checking his timetable again as they loitered outside the classroom. 'What's that all about?'

'If it's anything like I think it is, it will be very thorough,' Harry said.

'What is that supposed to mean?' Michael asked, sounding preoccupied.

Before Harry could reply, a rather strident, high-pitched voice seized his attention. 'Well, obviously we can't just go in and expect to become a master at combat. There's much more to martial arts than learning moves. You have to have discipline, stamina and control.'

The owner of that voice was the bushy-haired girl that stood behind him, large brown eyes bright with enthusiasm. When his attention fell to her, she rocked forward onto her toes, as if trying to match their eye-levels. 'Harry Potter.'

'Hermione Granger,' Harry answered, trying not to sound too reluctant.

A fleeting widening of the eyes was the only sign that she was not expecting this quick identification. The expression dissolved almost immediately. Harry had to admit that he was impressed.

This feeling of respect soon gave way to disbelief as she lectured Harry on the details of his own life, retold in the detached manner of an academic, but with the zeal of one passionate in their subject. Harry was grateful when their classroom door swung over to admit them.

The Snakes, though late in arriving, jostled to the front of the queue, puffing their chests as if they were birds instead. Rolling his eyes, Harry waited with his Raven friends before entering. There wasn't a teacher in sight, and the students relaxed. All of them except for Harry began to chatter among themselves, commenting on the irresponsible tardiness of the professor or the prospect of a free lesson period. Harry's eyes flicked restlessly around the room before centring on an inconspicuous potted plant. He grinned. The plant was harmless; the person hidden behind it wasn't.

A water-filled balloon sailed from the spot, catching the students unawares and quite a few of them in its impacting spray. Another followed and the crowd was havoc, running around, trying to avoid the missiles and spot their attacker. Harry, having successfully avoided the volleys, now stood at the side, waiting for the firing to stop and Moody to emerge.

The man hobbled out from behind the plant when he ran out of ammunition, surveying the mob of soaking and snivelling children with his one good eye. The man looked very displeased. _But then_, Harry thought, _that is his natural expression_.

'Enough!' Mad-Eye Moody barked, and the whining died out quickly. The pupils nervously took in their new teacher. He looked the archetypal war veteran, one-eyed, one-legged, and with a face that looked as if it had been gouged into by a student carver with his first block of wood. A chunk of his nose was missing. 'It's just water, children. Nothing to screech about. You could've been in a much worse state if I had malicious intent.

'Someone tell me the first rule of being a soldier,' he demanded, with a voice the texture of wood grain.

A few hands rose but not as briskly or confidently as that girl Hermione Granger's.

'You.' Moody nodded at her.

'Listen to your superiors,' she said.

'A rule, but not the first.'

'Kill your enemies,' Malfoy said, smirking at Harry.

'Again, important, but not the most important. Potter.'

Everyone looked to Harry, and he groaned to himself. 'Constant vigilance, sir,' he enunciated.

'Indeed, Potter. And coincidentally, Potter was the only one of you sorry lot who stayed on his guard the whole time instead of nattering like nitwits. He is also the only one of you who is warm and dry. Now, he has the excuse of being taught by me for years, but this first rule is something that you need to grasp immediately. Constant vigilance. We are on the verge of war. Never presume an area is safe until you have checked; that could be your downfall.'

Hermione's hand shot up again with solar speed.

'Yes…'

'Hermione Granger,' she announced. 'Excuse me, professor, but surely there was no reason to be vigilant in that situation. This is a classroom, a school, with trusted teachers. No one would dare harm us here.'

There was a general buzz of agreement.

'You'd be surprised. The most dangerous enemy is one hidden in plain sight. You were just a tiny child during the First War. There were spies and impersonators crawling through our ranks. You'd be surprised by how easy it is for them. Don't make it even easier by not paying attention. You have to have constant vigilance.'

Seeing that his students were suitably chilled, he dismissed them to change into their practical uniform.

'A bit harsh, don't you think, Professor? With the water,' Harry asked as the children divided by gender to enter separate changing rooms.

'But the lesson will stay with them longer. The uniform will dry, yes, but it will be harder to forget that freezing, sodden feeling on their "delicate" skins.'

'Let's hope that's all they will have to remember,' Harry muttered as he left to get changed himself. A water balloon whistled towards him from behind, but Harry leaned to the left and the disaster was averted.

'Not bad, Potter,' Moody called after him. 'Not bad.'

Not long later, the pupils were shivering in their light practical wear: a tank top, loose black trousers and combat trousers. A few girls managed to find the energy to titter appreciatively at Harry's defined biceps. Trying not to roll his eyes, Harry chose a position towards the back next to a jittery Michael Corner.

'Ok, Mike?' Harry asked, testing out the name he had heard others call him.

'Yeah, 'm fine.'

'Don't worry about Professor Moody. He might seem tough, but he's never mean,' Harry lied.

Michael nodded, managing a wan smile.

'This Order of the Phoenix School was made to turn you into able soldiers. You can't be a soldier if you can't fight, and you can't fight when you're out of shape, badly coordinated and afraid of pain.' His one-eyed stare travelled from face to petrified face, sizing up the potential. 'This class will be dedicated to forming your foundations as good soldiers: strength, endurance, keen reflexes, perseverance. Be prepared to sweat, to ache, to bleed.'

The unease was tangible amongst the cluster of recruits. Moody laughed, humourlessly.

'No need to act worried. It'll be good for you. Follow me.'

Moody, it was made apparent, was also looking out for compliance and efficiency when it came to following orders. The children's sloppy attempt at following him led to a lot of collisions and trampled feet. Lecturing and directing them until they could fall neatly into line ate ten minutes out of the training time.

Their professor made up for it when they left through the back door and onto the biggest of training fields. The one Harry ran laps around every morning. Glancing around at the twitchy pupils, he wondered ruefully how many of them would survive the first lesson.

...

'That was _torture_,' Anthony moaned as he eased his aching joints into the right position for his newly-dried school shirt.

'I can't feel my legs,' Terry said bluntly, emerging from the showers with a slight limp. 'Or my arms. Harry didn't even sweat,' he added, with a crooked grin.

'I'm used to it,' Harry said, swinging his legs on the bench, leading the other boys to envy his spare energy. 'You'll get used to it too.'

But he let them moan. He knew that they partly enjoyed whinging about their teachers. The boys seemed to find solace in their shared agony.

'It was sort of worth it, though,' Michael said. 'Just to see Granger struggling. This has got to be the only thing she's not good at!'

'Yeah.' Anthony looked heartened at this, and Terry hid a snicker. 'Her red face made my day.'

'All of your faces were red,' Harry pointed out.

'Shut up, Harry.' Anthony threw his stinky towel at Harry's head, but the boy simply caught it. 'Damn! You're no fun.'

'Malfoy and his pampered, snaky commies weren't looking so bright either,' Terry whispered, nodding over at the blond, who was too tired to insult anyone he deemed unworthy.

'No,' Harry said neutrally. Malfoy had been all right at the start, but as soon as the course involved crawling forward in the mud, the boy had adamantly refused and been promptly chased by Moody (who was a lot faster than he looked) for twenty minutes.

Draco scowled as the Chosen One walked past him, looking clean and unruffled and ready to endure that awful ordeal at least five more times. _There goes perfect Potter,_ he thought, but when Potter turned to face him, he realised that he had said it aloud.

'I suggest that you rest, Malfoy, if that's the best you can come up with,' Potter said in that irritatingly mellow voice.

The Ravens behind him cheered and laughed while one of them patted Potter on the back.

'I can match you any time, tired or not. And I'm not even that tired.' That sounded a lot less remarkable once it had left his mouth. _Quickly, think of something cutting_. 'After that _ever-so-impressive _show on the field earlier, it's even clearer that they chose you for your brawn, not your brains.'

The Snakes around him smirked, and Draco fed off of it, drawing himself up to a more imposing height.

'It's possible to have both, Malfoy. Not that you would know, since you appear to have neither.'

'Another point to Harry,' another of the Ravens hooted, and Draco really couldn't remember his name because they were all so mousy and unremarkable and similar. Potter stuck out like a sore thumb.

'There went another chance,' Zabini informed Draco. As if he didn't know. 'What are you going to tell your father when he asks of this?'

Draco stormed away, legs slightly wobbly with the aftershock of exercise. He didn't have to answer Zabini, or anybody.

...

Marksmanship with the diminutive Professor Flitwick wasn't anything new. Harry was used as a demonstrator once again, wielding his Ollivander gun and shooting targets for the gaping second years. He gladly left for lunch where he sat at the Raven table, listening to his friends enthuse about their Maths lesson. He didn't pay any mind to what he had after lunch until, with about five minutes left, he glanced down at his solar tablet.

The last two-hour slots had been merged into one and labelled with only two words. Meeting Room. No subject, no teachers, no houses. Frowning, he slipped his soltab back into his bag. He wondered.

It took him longer than he had first anticipated to find that room. It was on the top floor, where students seldom tread, far removed from the rest of the school. There was a different air about this storey. The floor was wooden instead of stone and carpet-draped; the identical doors were dark mahogany, only one of them had "Meeting Room" engraved into its bronze plaque. Harry knocked and waited, trying not to fidget as his edginess betrayed him.

'Come in.'

Harry recognised the voice before he opened the door. 'Kingsley?' he asked as he poked his head through.

He immediately calmed as he saw the benign man seated behind a sleek and minimalist desk. As the man surveyed Harry, his eyes winked fondly from within his ebony face. 'Hello, Harry, how are you?'

'I'm fine, thank you, how are you?' Harry grinned as he shut the door behind him.

Kingsley gestured to the seat across from him and Harry sat, dropping his school bag to the floor. 'I'm marvellous.'

Kingsley Shacklebolt was a member of the Order that Harry had met on more than one occasion. He had taken an instant liking to the man, never failing to be soothed by his rich, earthy voice. It was because of Kingsley's gracious disposition that he was a much-admired ambassador for ES-5.

'Are you going to be my teacher, Kingsley?' Harry asked.

'Yes.' The man smiled. 'Head Professor Dumbledore requested me especially for a two-hour long session, every week.'

'He did? What are we going to learn?'

'You have been training very hard, Harry, for most of your life. You are an excellent soldier. It is time for you to move on, to become an excellent leader.'

Being a leader was just as difficult as it had sounded to Harry in the first place. He had to be confident. Harry wasn't confident, not in that way. He was sure in his ability to hit a moving target at long range or fight multiple opponents at the same time, but away from the training rooms, in habitual life, attention made him nervous, admiration embarrassed him. He wasn't confident in himself.

He had to be charming. He had to get people on his side and keep them there, loyal not just to the cause but to him. And he had to be persuasive. He had to speak the right words in the right tone of voice with the right gestures. It made Harry's head swim. Public speaking, public relations, Kingsley reminded Harry that the eyes of the world would be on him, increasingly so as he got older and more active in the campaign against He Who Must Not Be Named. So much to think about.

Trying to eat dinner was a lost cause. Looking around at the mass of students and imagining himself leading them into battle made him feel slightly queasy. He escaped the Great Hall before the meal was officially over and decided to visit Remus, who wasn't due to teach martial arts to the masses until they had grasped Basic Physical Training.

Remus was calming and supportive, though not as warm as Harry remembered he used to be, or as alive. Harry had lost Remus the same time as he had lost Sirius, the man having to turn to stone in order to be Harry's pillar of strength. With each year, the man was worn down, becoming thinner and paler and then greyer. Harry didn't know why, only that it was more than just about Sirius.

After Remus, he visited Hagrid, who had now become the gamekeeper for Hogwarts and lived near the Forest, using his advantageous position to smuggle questionable creatures into the woods. Harry was pretty sure that this was why Dumbledore had banned student access to it. Hagrid was hearty and gregarious, treating Harry to some inedible food and slapping Harry on the back with a cavernous hand. 'Yeh'll be great, 'Arry,' he said. 'Yeh always are.'

Yes, he was such a perfect student, such a good Chosen One. Always doing as he was told. Students passed him in the halls on the way to the common room, greeting him enthusiastically. He'd take charge over them one day. It was his destiny. His destiny never failed to make him sick.

'Harry, over here.' Harry didn't know why he always felt so relieved when Ron met him with a smile, as if one day, he wouldn't.

'Ron.'

The redhead was sitting with the other Lions, playing a game of chess with Seamus. Harry's smile faltered slightly. That was his and Ron's thing.

'Help me win?' Ron offered.

'No fair, Ron,' the sandy-haired boy protested.

'You don't need any help,' Harry added.

'Fine,' Ron said good-naturedly. 'Oh yeah, Harry. Did you see the notice board? They're starting team Quidditch! We'll blast 'em out of the sky.'

'Ron,' Harry reprimanded, but his grin ruined it.

He sauntered up to the notice board and watched the chemicals crawl across the screen as the notices changed. Ah, there it was, the Quidditch notice. He scanned it quickly, and his smile disappeared completely.

'Exciting, right?' Ron asked as Harry went to sit down, missing the stormy look on his face.

'I can't do it.'

'What?'

'It's inter-house. I don't have a house.'

'Oh.' Ron's mouth twisted as the boy debated on what to say next. 'Well, we could still play in our spare time. Bet lots of people would want to play, yeah?'

'Yeah,' Harry replied, face clearing.

...

Draco read the letter four times before slipping out of his immobilised state. He should have considered the fact that his father would want updates on his relationship with Potter… but certainly not its non-existence. Yes, it included the standard inquiries into his health, but most of the letter was dedicated to Draco's performance.

He set his tablet down and twirled his pen. Should he lie? He never lied to his father; he was physically incapable. But he had also never been able to test this different, indirect medium.

_Dear father_, Draco wrote onto the tablet which logged his neatly-curling script, _I am well thank you, and I hope that I find you well also. _

_You were correct in your prediction that Potter would not be able to refuse a Malfoy's hand of friendship. He leapt at the opportunity and we have become fast friends, at least, that is what he believes. Your brilliant plan should indeed succeed. _

_Yours sincerely,_

_Draco._

In the dormitory a few doors down, Harry Potter was caught in the throes of yet another nightmare.

...

'Mummy?' Harry was small in this dream, his little hands clumsy around the solar gun. It took more of him to lift it; he did not dare to fire it. It was too dark to distinguish between friends and Death Eaters, and his only weapon was an alien mass in his hands. 'Mummy?'

His voice echoed, desolate and unanswered. If he had any company in this dark world, it wasn't living, breathing. Harry's foot sank into human flesh. He screamed like the child he was and fell back, his gun skittering into shadow and disappearing. Hands scrambled to search for it but found only limbs and faces of the dead. There was his father, so much smaller and paler as a bloody corpse; there was Sirius, a bark of laughter immortalised on his face in a stiff caricature; there was his mother, blossoming with gun wounds as red as her hair. He pushed her away. He couldn't save her, and she couldn't save him. The only thing that could save him was that ill-fitting gun.

There it was! It was snug in the red-eyed death-bringer's hands. Was it his? No, it was Voldemort's. The gun that killed his parents was now turned to him. This time he could finally die.

'_No, I've changed my mind.'_

Voldemort receded, but Harry sensed that he was still there, lurking beyond Harry's table. Table? Harry looked down to find his hands, only slightly larger now, resting on a wooden surface, wrists strapped to it.

This was real. Harry remembered this moment. But why was Voldemort here?

'_Be still, Harry_. _This is for your own good.'_

Whose voice was that? It was a voice he'd lived with for most of his years. Voldemort had a syringe filled with a colourless substance. '_Imperium,_' he said in that voice that wasn't his, '_diluted, of course. As your resistance increases, you will be injected with a stronger dose._'

Harry struggled.

'_Now, Harry, you must think of your future. There may come a time when you will need to fight against this. Why not learn now, while you are young and growing in strength? This is for your own good.'_

'My own good,' Harry whispered.

Voldemort plunged the syringe into Harry's forearm, and the boy screamed, thrashing against his bonds as the Imperium bled through his veins like acid, consumed his mind.

_Fight_.

Harry knew pain, but nothing like this. Nothing that had forced him to eject himself from his own body rather than battle to keep control of it.

_Fight._

Ok, he'd try. He'd contend the Imperium for every bitter inch of his mind. It was his. It had its light and its shade and too many bad thoughts to count, but it was his. And he shouldn't have to fight for it, hurt for it.

'_Jump on the table_.'

When did Voldemort become Dumbledore, watching with a grim, rapt expression? When did Moody and Moony and Snape start lurking? Maybe it didn't matter. It fit what he remembered more.

'_Jump on the _table_,' _Moody ordered, cutting his bonds.

_Fight_.

Harry's blood seared, his joints felt as if they were tearing apart, even as they moved of their own accord.

_Fight_.

'Jump on the table.'

_Fight._

Harry was going to jump. Harry stopped himself. He half-leapt, slamming his knee on the desk, and fell onto his back. He hardly felt the collision; it was nothing compared to the Imperium, circulating his body in torturous pulses.

'You're worthless,' Moody said over him. 'The Dark Lord will make short work of you.'

'Voldemort will kill you.' Dumbledore stood above him too.

And Remus. 'Your parents died for you, for this.'

And Snape. 'For nothing.'

And the whole school. All the faces he had ever known, looking down. Harry lay and shivered and convulsed on the floor, looking back. Voldemort was there, and he said, _'I want it to be slow. I want to see the light leave his eyes. I want to feel the life pour out of his feeble little body._' The faces above Harry agreed. Suddenly, they all had arms, and a thousand hands rained down to smother Harry to death.

...

When Neville found Harry lying in the middle of the training field the next morning, he dithered. So far, he had managed to avoid the boy. He should retreat, slowly, but there was a certain stillness about Harry that disturbed him.

'Harry?' Neville called out uncertainly, and when Harry didn't even stir, he scampered forward. 'Harry? Harry!' He was dead! The Chosen One was dead. All the poor hom's misery for nothing. He didn't even get to kill the Dark Lord.

'Ow,' Harry winced, and Neville's knees almost gave way.

'You're alive.'

'Wha…?' The boy-who-wasn't-dead sat up slowly, pinching his nose. 'Of course I'm…Neville, you're so loud.'

'Sorry. I thought you were dead.'

'I figured. Too bad that it takes that extreme for you to talk to me.'

Neville shifted uncomfortably, setting one foot behind the other in preparation to run. However, his conscience kicked in when he saw Harry's red eyes and sallow skin. 'What happened?'

'Nothing. Just didn't get a lot of sleep. Nightmares,' the Chosen one said rather airily. 'I get them sometimes. You never really get used to them.'

'Sorry,' Neville repeated.

'It's not your fault,' Harry dismissed, getting to his feet and brushing himself down.

'It is,' Neville blurted out.

Harry raised an eyebrow expectantly, as if waiting upon what would surely be a ludicrous answer.

'The prophecy, it wasn't about you.'

'Of course it's about me.' There was no bitterness, just the clinical recital of hard facts. 'If it wasn't about me then all of this wouldn't be happening. I wouldn't have been trained so hard and had a school built up around me.'

'Ok, the prophecy is about you now, but it wasn't made with you in mind. It talked about someone born at the end of the seventh month, July, to parents who, um, defied the Dark Lord three times.'

'Which I was and they did,' Harry said.

'Yeah but, so was I. I mean, my birthday's on the 30th, the 30th of July, and my parents escaped the Dark Lord three times too.'

Whatever retort Harry had been planning dissipated, leaving Harry's mind an empty, echoing chasm. 'What?'

'The Chosen One could've been me, just as much as it could've been you. It could've been me in your place all this time. Me who lost my parents, me with the responsibility of saving this world.'

No matter how many times Neville managed to rephrase it in the space of one breath, Harry still couldn't quite grasp the idea. That he hadn't been the only option, that he'd had a chance at a normal life, that he could have escaped being the Chosen One.

'Are you sure you're not in the Badgers?' Harry breathed after a while. 'You've got the honesty part covered.'

Neville wasn't finished. 'Both of our parents knew about the prophecy. They both knew that the Dark Lord could come after us and cause the family he found first a lifetime of misery. My parents loved yours, I promise. They really did. They were friends since school, they were Order members together since then. But every night, they would pray that he would find you and spare me. Every night. They didn't care what happened to the Potters unless I was safe. And I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry.'

Now Harry understood. The funeral: the true guilt, the fervent apologies, Neville's avoidance. 'Well, they got what they wanted,' Harry said hollowly.

'And they're still grieving,' Neville replied. 'And so am I.'

'You didn't know them.'

'I grieve the idea of them, the potential. I miss meeting them; I miss going around their house all the time; I miss growing up with you, as friends. I miss seeing my parents truly happy, ok with themselves again. Wishing for the death of your dearest friends, and it happening, I could never begin to imagine what that feels like.'

'Well, parents would do anything to make sure their child is safe. No matter the expense.' Down to the last moment, his parents had died fighting for him. His mother's last words had been to beg for him, her last act to shield him from the bullets with her own body.

'I wish they didn't. I'm sorry, Harry, I really am.'

'Neville.' He raised his voice, giving Neville no room to answer. 'It's not your fault, ok? It will never be your fault. You will always be your parents' priority, and you should be grateful for that.'

'I am.'

'They did what they had to, which wasn't much. Ultimately, it was Voldemort's choice that doomed my parents, not the Longbottoms'.' Harry noticed with approval that Neville didn't flinch at the Dark Lord's chosen name. 'While their remorse can't change what has already happened, it shows that they are better people than Voldemort will ever be. I'll forgive them. I'll never be able to forgive Voldemort for what he's done, but I can forgive them. And we can still be friends, grow up together.'

Neville fell to his knees. Beneath his polished veneer of training, he was a clumsy boy. He grabbed at Harry's shirt front, causing the rather bemused Harry to stumble forward. 'Thank you,' Neville said. 'You're so good. You don't deserve this. I'm sorry.'

'That's enough, Neville,' Harry said patiently.

'You're going to be a great leader someday, Harry. You'll beat Voldemort and I'll follow you. I promise, I'll follow you.'

_And that is how you gain loyalty,_ a voice in Harry's head that sounded suspiciously like Kingsley's said. He still didn't know quite what he had done to provoke Neville's actions, and so he didn't quite know how to react to them either, apart from to say: 'Are you _really_ sure you're not a Badger?'

* * *

**AN: **Moody is fun to write, so are psychological nightmares. I'll leave you with that telling insight into my author mentality.

Thank you for all the support so far. The followers, reviewers, favourite..rs, you know who you are. Hermione-lovers can expect her to feature very heavily from now on.


	11. Chapter 11

Thank you everyone for the great response to the previous chapter! As promised, more Hermione.

* * *

For the majority of pupils, it was not long before their rough edges were smoothed enough for them all to fit into place. Tentative bonds formed between the houses even as the competition for house points soared and Quidditch tournaments began. Harry was one of the main links, free from the boundaries of each house but welcome in each one. People who would have never interacted met through him. In the first year common room, what had once been four distinctly-coloured clusters had become an intermingled mass of blues, reds and yellows, with the occasional green.

Harry was, dare he say it, truly content. It never bothered him now that he couldn't stay at the Lions' table. Ron was no longer his lifeline. Of course, he valued his first friend above all others, but Harry had a class at least twice a week with every single student at the school, and he was trying his best to know all of them.

When he did sit with Lions, he enjoyed the company of Ron and his mob of raucous friends (which included Neville), but he just as often sat with the third years, sandwiched between the cackling Weasley twins. At the Ravens' table, he flitted between the year groups, listening to debates and sometimes, if he was brave enough, contributing. On the Badgers' table, he commanded the attention and loyalty of the first and second years while a boy with copper hair and a charming grin did the same with the third years. How that boy managed to win the adoration of his peers without the persuasive title of "Chosen One" was something that Harry knew he would have to learn. At the Snakes', he avoided his own year on principle, sitting with Pucey, Shafiq and the other third years.

Lessons progressed at a brisk pace, leaving no room for students to get comfortable or complacent as they improved. As soon as they were doing well at Basic Physical Training, Professor Lupin was introduced into their training scheme as a hand-to-hand combat teacher. Extra sessions were put aside for first aid classes from Madame Pomfrey. As well as his standard lessons and the private sessions with Kingsley Shacklebolt, Harry also had some periods set aside for individual study and exercise. Harry didn't even consider relaxing. Instead, he threw himself into practising martial arts drills or gymnastics or solar sabre-play.

Third years, who got one free session a week, gradually learnt of Harry's practices and, instead of lazing around their common room, gravitated over to watch. Harry, while terribly embarrassed at first, came to tolerate it. And when they gingerly offered to take part, he began to duel with them and to teach them until he reached a point where he was no longer surprised when these older boys and girls rushed to meet his demands. Apart from the Snakes, of course, who sauntered instead with little smirks on their faces.

Yes, everything was falling into place. Everyone was forming a close circle of friends for themselves. Harry had never been happier. Hermione was disappointed all over again.

She had never found making friends easy. Watching everyone laugh and joke in the Great Hall wasn't fresh enough an experience for it to hurt deeply, but it ached a dull, prolonged ache that she was perfectly accustomed to. She really had tried this time. She had thought that, away from small town prejudices and the stigma her academic superiority created, she would finally be able to branch out, to be a new and wonderful person that everyone wanted to be around. But maybe it really was just her.

Glancing along the table, it wasn't the first time she wondered how all the other children had the secret. She was sure there had to be some sort of secret. Some formula to making friends that everyone knew apart from her. It was hard enough admitting that she didn't know something, but she could think of no other explanation. She sighed. They didn't know how blessed they were. They really didn't.

She got up to leave. She never stayed at the table to the end of dinner. It was never worth it. No one spoke to her, and when she tried to speak to them, they would shy away frantically. Walking along the aisle was the worst part. Usually, she managed to get a seat on the other side of the table, but occasionally she was forced to sit on the side flanking the Snakes'. She kept her head down as she scurried out, hoping that a particular group of Snakes wouldn't notice her.

'Look who's off by herself again.'

_Keep walking, Hermione._

'Where're you off to, Granger?'

They'd moved to block her path. To look for a way out meant that she had to look up at them. The first year Snakes. The speaker was Malfoy, always Malfoy.

'Off to meet someone?' another suggested.

'Don't be ridiculous, Nott, you know she hasn't got any people to meet.'

They laughed, Hermione began to walk back the way she came.

'Where are you going, Granger?'

Hermione tried to shake it off. It was nothing personal. She was just another easy target, and Malfoy had a daily quota of teasing and humiliation to fill.

'Going to cry to someone?'

'Who would she cry to?'

'A teacher.'

'She loves teachers. Too bad they're the only ones who love her back.'

'Not even Saint Potter will talk to you.'

'He doesn't particularly like you either,' Hermione finally snapped.

She didn't know why he paled at this. Whatever the reason, Malfoy was truly angry now.

'You think you're so smart,' he said, loudly enough to draw the attention of all those around him. 'Too bad that's all you've got. What's the point of brains when you've got no friends? What's the point of brains when you've got buck teeth and scruffy hair? What's the point of brains when you're poor and insignificant? You are _nothing_, Granger. And no-one wants to be friends with _nothing_.'

Hermione almost crumpled on the spot. He was right, wasn't he? She looked around the room. No-one protested, they just looked at the both of them stonily. She couldn't face their hard stares any longer. She whipped her head the other way to see Harry Potter, standing up from his bench, deep green eyes wide as they gazed at her. She couldn't take their brilliance. She pushed past Malfoy and ran.

…

'Harry, where are you going?' Ron asked as Harry climbed off of the bench, his half-eaten dinner abandoned on the table.

'That girl, Hermione, she ran out. I-'

'Harry, it's probably fine. She was itching on everyone for being such a talk-all anyway.'

'Malfoy went too far, though.'

'Yeah, Malfoy was a real spit to her, but maybe she'll stop being so loud. Maybe he's done her good somehow.'

'We still should follow her, make sure she's ok. I have this bad feeling…'

'About what, com? Hogwarts Castle is completely safe, right? She's probably just gone to hide in a girls' toilet or something. That's what they usually do.'

'Yeah, I guess,' Harry said.

'C'mon, they've just put out some treacle tart. Your favourite, right?'

'Yeah.'

…

Hermione ran around the track until she was hot and sweaty. She didn't know how people like Harry could run for so long in such heat. She had overheard him once saying that exercise cleared his head. _Some methods,_ she thought to herself,_ do not work for everyone. _

She looked up and spied the forest. It was a dark mass on the horizon; the trees looked marvellously cool. She turned to her other side where the castle lay. She was beginning to hate that place. She didn't want to go back, not yet. Getting up cautiously, she made her way to the forest, faintly aware of the rules prohibiting student entrance. She was usually a stickler for the rules, but exhaustion and misery had a way of changing people.

…

'She's not in the Common Room, Ron.'

'Who? Wait, you're _still_ thinking about Granger, Harry?'

'I don't like this, not at all.'

'She could be in her room.'

'With a bunch of roommates that she hates?'

'Huh?'

Things clicked into place. 'She hates it here. Why would she take refuge here? Why would she go and hide among the very people who shun her?' He wouldn't. He would get as far away from them as possible. Like at the funeral, with all those stifling people. He'd wanted to get away. He'd wanted space.

'We've got to find her.'

'Harry.'

'Now, Ron.'

Faced with blistering green eyes and Harry's fire, Ron had no choice but to submit. 'Ok, but when we find her crying in the toilet, you'll never get so nervy again.'

…

The forest was beautiful in the sunset, the trees and leaves embroidered with amber sunlight. It was so peaceful here. No people, just the unobtrusive sound of nature's bustling insects. She wished that she had brought a book to read in the ethereal, orange light. Something cracked behind her, too loudly to sound natural.

What was that?

Hermione fell away from the tree she was leaning against. There was something shifting in the distance. It wasn't human. It wasn't one of nature's bustling insects either.

…

'See, she's not out here,' Ron puffed.

He and Harry had run most of the floors in the castle before racing outside. They still hadn't seen hide or frizzed hair of Hermione Granger.

'I bet you she's in her dormitory,' Ron panted, bending over and resting his hands on his knees. 'I bet you.'

Harry was just about to give up when a spine-chilling scream emanated from the forest.

'Hermione!' he yelled, sprinting.

…

A Blast-Ended Skrewt? What was a Blast-Ended Skrewt doing in the forest? She pressed herself further against the tree as the scorpion-like creature herded her in with its monstrous claws. Another rustling to her left. Were there more? Who cared? She was going to die anyway. She would die here, right on the school grounds, and _no-one_ would care.

'Hermione!' The shrubbery to her left waved violently as a figure pushed through them.

'Harry Potter?'

The boy saw her immediately, his countenance concerned but not overly surprised by the sight of the repulsive creature that entrapped her.

'Bloody hell! What is that thing?'

Ron Weasley emerged next, and Hermione's thoughts soured. She had never liked the ignorant, vulgar redhead.

'It's a Blast-Ended Skrewt,' Harry explained before Hermione could, much to her shock. 'They're thought to be distant relatives of the Whole Earth's scorpions, but they're native to this planet. They're usually found in large, open deserts with hostile climates.'

'Then what is it doing in this bloody forest?!'

'It's Hagrid's. He likes collecting…exotic pets.'

'And he keeps them here? I knew the man was dosed, ever since he tried to feed us those _mortal_ rock cakes.'

Hermione raised her eyebrows. She couldn't imagine Ron rejecting any form of food.

'Don't badmouth Hagrid,' Harry said patiently, as if on automatic. 'And let's focus on this.'

'Right.' Ron nodded, determined expression somewhat counteracted by the pallor of his skin. 'How do we do this?'

'Well, I don't actually know how to ward off a Blast-Ended Skrewt.'

'Ward off? Just shoot it with your gun and be done with it!'

'I can't _shoot_ it; it's Hagrid's pet.'

'Ok, yeah, right. So what do we do?'

Hermione decided that it was high time for her to speak up. 'When settlers first landed on ES-5, they faced a similar problem,' she said, trying to keep her voice level. 'Killing a Blast-Ended Skrewt only resulted in provoking the ire of its kin. The settlers needed to think of ways to deter the Skrewts peacefully.'

'M'god, she's like a walking netlink,' Ron said.

'Go on, Hermione,' Harry said, marking the creature with his gun but trying not to shoot.

'At,' she drew in a shaky breath as a claw swung dangerously close to her face, 'at a first glance. The – the Blast-Ended Skrewts had next to no vulnerabilities. Their thick armour repelled most types of firearms, their flexible stingers targeted bare human skin with pin-point accuracy, their suckers–'

'Hermione,' Ron interrupted, 'it's really impressive that you know all that, yeah? But could you tell us _how to drive the thing off?_'

'Oh, right.' Hermione mentally skimmed along the next few lines of the netbook she had read on native creatures. 'Um, their undersides are the only part of them not armoured. And their blasts–'

Ron and Harry looked to each other. 'Blasts?'

'Hermione, get away from there!'

The rear-end of the disgusting creature lit up, and Harry and Ron dove to the ground, just avoiding the scorching projectile that propelled the Skrewt forward into the tree. To Harry's relief, Hermione had ducked down and jumped away just in time.

'Over here, get over here,' Harry called, and she ran into him, a blubbering wreck as she clawed her way into his arms. She had forgotten that they were barely even acquaintances. Ron's incredulous look served to remind her, but Harry let her forget, patting her head and trying to be comforting.

'Harry, it's coming back!' Ron squeaked.

'I can't get its underside from this angle,' Harry said. 'Hermione, what do I do?'

Hermione pulled away, face fluorescent. 'Er…um…their blasts. The settlers fooled them with man-made blasts. The Skrewts thought that they were enemy males, claiming their territory.'

'Well,' Ron began, 'we don't have-'

'Good!' Harry said, adjusting the ammunition on his gun from bullets to solar blasts. He quickly aimed at the ground beneath the Blast-Ended Skrewt and fired. The beast reared up and away from the flames that it created, but Harry wasn't finished. He aimed next at the tree behind the Skrewt and this time, the ugly creature turned tail and ran.

Before Ron and Hermione could celebrate, Harry said: 'Quickly, help me put the fires out.'

They all ran forwards with handfuls of dirt and patted at the fires until they were extinguished. Only then did they collapse onto the forest floor, completely stunned.

McGonagall was waiting for them in the main hall, taking in their muddied and slightly singed appearances. Her glacial mien commanded an explanation as effectively as her next words did.

'Would someone like to tell me what exactly is going on here?' Harry was about to prepare a lie about training when McGonagall continued. 'And why I saw the three of you leaving the _forbidden_ Hogwarts Forest past curfew.'

'Damn!' Ron cursed under his breath.

'It was my fault, Professor,' Hermione spoke up. Ron looked at her with blatant astonishment, but Harry managed to keep his face neutral.

'_Your_ fault, Ms Granger?' McGonagall asked. 'How?'

'I – I was curious about what was in there, about why it was forbidden, and I thought that I would be smart enough to take care of myself. But I was wrong. There was a Blast-Ended Skrewt in there and – and I probably would have died if Harry…and Ron hadn't been there to save me. They scared it off before it could hurt me.'

'Well, it was a very foolish thing to do, Ms Granger. You were indeed lucky that these boys knew to come and find you. 10 points from Raven House.' Hermione nodded dejectedly. 'As for you, Mr Potter and Mr Weasley, well done. 10 points to the Lions and 10 points to…' she looked down at Harry, flummoxed as to what to do, before saying: 'yes, well, aptly handled, Mr Potter. I suggest that you all pay a visit to the hospital wing.'

She strode off and Harry turned to Hermione, ready to thank her for (however rightly) shouldering all of the blame and (however wrongly) lying for them. It was too late, she was already running off.

'Are you as confused as I am right now?' Ron asked.

Harry simply nodded, and they went off to the hospital wing to get treatment for minor burns and singed hair. Hermione wasn't there.

In fact, according to visual sources, Hermione had run through the common room and straight into her dormitory. Harry, since he wasn't allowed anywhere near the girls' dormitories, could only listen to her roommates assurances that she hadn't flung herself from the window and avoid their inquiries into why he was so concerned. He didn't even know why. He just was.

He didn't see her again until the next morning, when he ventured over to the great basin to practise some flight manoeuvres. To his surprise, he found Hermione already there, sitting at the edge, not waiting for him, just thinking.

'Hello.'

Hermione, as he predicted, jumped, apologising profusely and preparing to leave.

'No, stay,' Harry said, sitting beside the spot she had just vacated and patting the ground next to him. The flight could wait.

'Why did you do it?' he asked, after she sank back to the ground.

'Do what?'

'Lie to a teacher. I thought that wasn't your typa thing.'

Hermione blushed furiously and stared at her knees. 'I didn't want you to get into trouble for saving me.'

'Why didn't you just tell her the truth?' When she didn't reply, he persisted. 'What was the truth? Why did you run off into the forest?'

'You…you saw what happened, with Draco Malfoy. Everyone saw. No one likes me here. I don't belong.'

'So you ran off into the forest?'

'I didn't want to stay in the castle!'

Harry glanced at her. 'I understand.'

'It's just…whenever I'm there, he always seems to find me. Malfoy. I tell myself that what he says isn't true, but it still gets me somewhere.'

Harry sighed. He understood that too. 'Malfoy, yeah. His insults are nowhere near as clever as he thinks they are.' Hermione chuckled at this. 'But he's very good at sniffing out insecurities in people. You've got to, I guess, you've got to know that your insecurities are all yours. Your mind creates them, and if you feed them enough, then they'll be true. Until then, it's your choice if they're the truth or not.'

'You're sort of wise, Harry,' Hermione muttered at her knees, face going even redder.

Harry blinked. 'Thank you. I just think a lot, that's all.'

'You've had a lot of reason to,' Hermione remarked, observing the darkening of his face. 'I never thanked you, for saving my life.'

'It wasn't just me.'

'Well, I suppose Ronald–'

'No. You, Hermione. You and your knowledge. You're smart, Hermione. Without your memory we would've all died.'

'All I do is memorise,' Hermione dismissed. 'It was your ability to turn facts into action that saved us. You have intuition.'

'I don't think either of us are going to win this argument,' Harry pointed out and Hermione laughed, unused to this situation. Laughing with someone else, as if with a friend.

'You didn't need to rescue me though, Harry. No-one would have cared.'

'No way, Hermione! Don't you dare say that. People would've cared. I would've cared.'

'Why? You never liked me.'

'I like you now,' Harry said, before scratching his pink neck. 'I mean, well, when you're not talking about facts all the time, you're pretty easy to talk to.'

Hermione didn't know what to say. 'I wish I'd had friends. Then I wouldn't be so gormless in front of Harry Potter.'

'I'm your friend, Hermione,' Harry said softly.

A dreadfully high noise managed to escape Hermione although her lips were clamped together. Before Harry could wonder how or why girls did this, she lunged forward and snared him in another hug. Laughing uncertainly, Harry wrapped his arms around her until she chose to let go. 'Thank you, thank you, I mean, um–'

'It's not a favour, Hermione. You don't have to say thank you.'

'I know, it's just that, well, I think you're the first friend I've ever had, so…' She trailed off, mortified. 'Forget I said that. You wouldn't understand anyway! I probably sounded really pathetic, didn't I?'

'No, I understand. I completely understand.'

Hermione had the grace not to let her mouth fall open very far. Harry was glad. He already had one Ron; he didn't need another. 'But you're…you're_ Harry Potter_. Everyone loves you,' she admitted shyly.

'I didn't have a single friend for half of my life,' Harry said. 'I spent most of my days in hiding with my parents then here, alone in the castle apart from my teachers. I met Ron when I was six.' Harry smiled softly. 'He wasn't perfect: he said some grating things, he didn't fully understand me. But he was my first friend, and he stood by me, and I'm really grateful for him. You never forget your first friend.

'Even at Hogwarts, it took a while for me to make good friends, true friends. People who didn't hang around me to gain status or bragging rights. It took a while for them to see that I wasn't a walking title, you know? That I wasn't just the Chosen One, that I was Harry too.'

Hermione empathised. She always managed to build reputations up around her. The nethead, the teacher's pet, the scary genius girl. Beneath that she was Hermione, and people only had to reach out to her, just a little bit, to know. But they never did.

'Oh, Harry, but they see you now! They see that you're smart and witty and brave and loyal.'

'Slowly, yes.' Harry smiled. 'And they will for you too. I won't be your last, Hermione.'

'My last?'

'I may be your first friend, but I won't be your last.'

Their fingers met tentatively in the dusky grass, and those green eyes of his sparkled with promise. Her heart fluttered with something that she thought had been quelled weeks ago: hope.

…

Harry had been right. There were more friends out there. In the next week, Hermione reconciled with Neville, who much preferred her newer, humbler demeanour. Harry started a conversation with Padma Patil, Sue Li and Morag McDougall and drew her seamlessly in until they realised that her intellect was not a negative thing, but a key to more interesting conversation. She even managed to befriend her roommates, Hannah Abbot and Lisa Turpin, by herself although she steered clear of the two vindictive Snakes. Hermione sensed that she would never get along with pug-nosed Parkinson or vain Greengrass.

Whenever Harry visited the Ravens' table, he sought out Hermione, and she was always seen around the school outside lesson hours, walking the corridors with Harry and Ron. Ron, at first, found it difficult to adjust to this change, but they eventually learnt to at least tolerate each other. Soon the school began to view her as Harry's other best friend, and the small, select group that they operated in came to be called the "Golden Trio". Ron: the rapidly blooming tactical mastermind, Hermione: the brightest girl in her school and Harry: the sharp and formidably talented Chosen One. Some admired, others envied, Draco sneered whenever they passed. That was life at the Order of the Phoenix School. Harry wanted to say that he wouldn't change it for the Earth Settlements, but given the circumstances, he found it a bit inappropriate.

…

The next two years passed easily enough. The student population expanded substantially as new years came in but the older years didn't graduate. Harry had a lot more names to learn and a lot less time to give to everyone, although he tried. Out of the additional years, the year directly below him was the most active in snaring his attention. Ginny Weasley, who still had a planet-sized fixation with him, Colin Creevey, who had managed to found a Harry Potter fanclub right under his nose, and Luna Lovegood, an ethereal girl who floated about the castle, were the most notable students.

Harry, Ron and Hermione became closer as a trio, though Harry was constantly having to put up with the latter two's arguments, and Neville became Harry's partner for early morning training. Every leave period, Harry went back to the Burrow with Ron, Hermione occasionally leaving her parents and doing the same. The Longbottoms, after finally accepting Harry's (unnecessary) forgiveness, invited him over for dinner where he encountered Neville's fearsome grandmother.

The students became stronger, better, more competent. The school was succeeding. However, there was a persistent rumble, fronted by the Ministry, that refused to be quieted. It stated that Voldemort really wasn't returning and the Official Order of the Phoenix School was all a sham…

* * *

**AN:** And so the first arc finishes. The next arc will pick up in Harry's fourth year and will (probably) descend into moral darkness at some point. Won't that be fun?


	12. Chapter 12

**AN: **Harry's childhood is coming to a close. If I wanted to be more formal about it, I would declare this as the beginning to the second arc of the story, but I don't, so I won't. Still, hopefully you will notice a change in tone and pace somewhere along Harry's rocky road to war.

* * *

Fourth year!' Ron pumped his fist enthusiastically before beating the interior of the solar carriage.

'Is that really exciting to you, Ron?' Harry asked amusedly from the seat opposite, legs crossed as he reclined easily.

'We get to specialise our courses,' Ron said. 'No. more. Maths.' He emphasised each word with a strike of his fist.

Hermione rolled her eyes, but Harry, Neville, Dean and Seamus laughed.

'You'd think that a tactician would need Maths,' Hermione pointed out.

'For what, boring the troops?' Ron asked. More laughter followed.

Hermione flushed. 'No, for working out co-ordinates and team division and things like that.'

Ron paused. 'Oh.'

The group laughed, and Hermione allowed herself to smile as Harry laughed the loudest. 'Ron, what're we going to do with you?' Harry grinned.

Ron scratched his head, smiling sheepishly. 'Apparently, make me do Maths. What field do you want to enter into then, 'Herms?'

'I want to be a researcher, or perhaps, if I'm good enough, a technological developer.'

Ron snorted. '"If I'm good enough."' The boys all laughed. 'C'mon, Hermione, you're like the smartest person in the whole school.'

'Apart from Dumbledore,' Harry voiced.

'And Harry,' Hermione added.

'Nope, you're definitely smarter than me. Don't even try to deny it.'

Hermione shut her opening mouth. 'What does everyone else want to do?' she finally asked, quietly.

'I'll probably go into one of the battle squads,' Dean volunteered.

'Me too,' Seamus said and they high-fived. 'I'm hoping to get into the aerial division.'

'That means you'd have to be good at flying,' Ron said and would have been attacked if Neville hadn't been sitting in the way.

'You, Neville?' Dean asked casually as the boy in question was used by Ron as a human barricade.

'I want to go into battle too. I'd…maybe try for a leadership role.'

This had Ron and Seamus falling still.

'Shoot for it, hom!' Ron almost winded him with a clap on the back.

'Yeah!' Seamus added.

'You'd be a great battalion leader, Nev.' Harry grinned.

This comment seemed to mean the most. 'Thanks, Harry.' Neville smiled, the deep respect he'd accumulated for Harry shining through. Ron ruined the atmosphere by pretending to gag, something that Harry found humorous but Hermione turned her nose up at.

'There's no point asking what Harry wants to do,' Seamus said once Ron had tired himself out.

Everyone knew this was the wrong thing to say as Harry's face clouded and he turned away from the group, glancing out of the window. Hogwarts castle sat in the distance, but it didn't instil him with the usual feeling of elation, only the tidings of change.

…

Judging Harry's progress with analytical exactitude was difficult when Harry disappeared for two months over the summer. Although, Dumbledore supposed, Harry leaving for the holidays was necessary, as it kept the boy happy and Dumbledore himself in high regard.

He watched intently for Harry's arrival and was met with quite a shock. The boy had hit quite a growth spurt over the long break and, Dumbledore was pleased to see, inherited his father's stature. Though having recently turned fourteen, Harry wasn't much shy of average height for a fully grown man and was due to keep shooting up. His features had matured, losing the softness of Lily and reproducing James' refined facial structure and strong jaw. Those eyes were still vividly green, and his smaller smiles evoked his mother's warmth. It was just the right balance, Dumbledore decided. Harry was becoming very handsome. The students were noticing, but Harry responded with incapacitating discomfort. That would have to change.

_Yes_, Dumbledore leaned back, waiting for the students to settle, _it is time._

Harry was a bit confused to say the least by the looks he received upon entering the Great Hall. Not by their sheer number, he had grown accustomed to that, but by the very nature of them. They were too intense, too bewildered, too (a word Harry thought fitted best) predatory. He smiled nervously and many girls blushed. A few boys did too. Now Harry was completely lost.

He glanced back at the Lion boys, some who were more perceptive to this than others, and then to Hermione who looked just as knowing as she usually did.

'Hermione,' he hissed under his breath, 'what is this…?' but then he forgot what he was about to say when he caught a pair of pretty, slanted eyes. The owner of them, a beautiful Raven girl with a sleek curtain of black silk for hair, flushed under his attention before sending him a fleeting smile. Before Harry could do anything else, the girl turned away and her friends began to talk to her rapidly.

'M'god, Harry.' Ron said, 'that was Cho Chang.'

'I'm aware of who she was, Ron.'

'Aware being the understatement of the year,' Ron continued in a voice that Harry found unsuitably loud for the topic. 'Isn't she the girl you fancied for half of–?'

'Shut up, Ron!' Harry threw him to the floor and pinned his neck with his hand.

Ron looked inexplicably gleeful to Harry until he said, 'You still like her, don't you?'

'Ssh!' Harry muttered, glancing around the room.

There were quite a lot of people watching, but they seemed more focused on the fact that Harry had his best friend in a chokehold than the subject of his admiration. Finally, Harry let him up, brushing imaginary dust off of Ron's shoulders before punching him lightly on the shoulder. People took this as a sign that whatever conflict between them had been resolved and moved on.

'Is it true then?' Ron demanded.

'I dunno, maybe,' Harry said exasperatedly. 'She's nice-looking.' Again, an understatement. Harry found her downright gorgeous.

Ron apparently agreed. 'Nice-looking? C'mon, Harry. She's year above, got great legs _and_ a decent pair.' Harry glanced away at this, beetroot red and pretending that he hadn't noticed. 'And word is that she's walked the hom circle. Bet she really knows what she's doing when it comes to men.'

'Merlin, Ron!' Harry grimaced. 'You don't just say stuff like that. Besides, look at her, she's just not that sort of person.'

'So you're after a good girl then, Harry?'

Harry quietly bemoaned the situation. How were they getting further and further into this? 'Yes, no, I don't know, Ron. I'm not looking for a type; I just like her, ok?'

They had left the others far behind in the pursuit of food, something Harry was glad about. He really didn't want Hermione to hear this conversation.

'Well, I'd usually say that a girl like that is lightyears off, but you're Harry Potter, aren't you?' The tone was light and jokey enough, but Harry sensed some masked bitterness towards the end. Harry frowned, slightly concerned.

'That's rubbish, Ron. You know it. Besides, she probably doesn't even like younger men,' he said with a half-smile.

Ron grinned. 'Yeah, maybe not.'

'What is this we hear?' two voices demanded in eerie unison

Harry flinched. Not this. Please not this.

'Who doesn't like younger men?'

'Would "younger men" be synonymous with "Harry" by any chance?'

'Leave it, Fred, George.' Harry sighed.

'Who is it?' Fred pressed.

'Someone we know?' George followed.

'In our year?'

'Bet she's easy viewing.'

'Ron, you know right? Do tell.'

'Ron,' Harry said warningly.

'Oh, leave the hom alone,' Ron finally said flatly, marching off to the Lions' table.

'What smashed _his_ fleet?' George asked.

'Forget that, Harry hasn't answered the question.'

'Why do you need to know?'

'We need to make sure she's suitable for our cute, little Harry,' Fred said with an exaggerated pat to Harry's head, a task made difficult by the fact that they were practically the same height. 'Hmm, you were cuter when you were smaller.'

'Now you're all leg,' George agreed.

'Well, sorry for obeying the laws of nature instead of you,' Harry said dryly.

'As you should be.'

As Harry made to pursue Ron and ask him what was wrong, he was intercepted by his two favourite sixth-year Snakes.

'So this is what everyone's been talking about,' Azra Shafiq said, breaking eye contact to leisurely peruse Harry's body. Harry sprung back, hiding as much of himself as he could with his food tray. 'Time's treated you, Potter.'

'_That's_ what everyone's been looking at me strangely for?' Harry asked. 'Because I grew a few inches?'

'No, Harry,' Azra Shafiq drawled. 'I thought you were meant to be perceptive.'

Adrian Pucey laughed. 'Not when it comes to himself, Shafiq. You know that.'

'You're right.'

'Could someone please tell me what is going on?' Harry asked.

'Look at you, all tall and tanned and chiselled,' Shafiq said. 'People are liking what they see.'

'W-what?'

'So what are you going to do with it?' Pucey asked eagerly.

'With what?'

Shafiq snorted. '"With what?" This gives you a new type of power. Are you going to use it or stand there floundering around like a grotesque puffer fish?'

Harry couldn't help it. He burst out laughing. 'Terrible analogy, Shaf.'

'I mean it though, Pot. Look at people like Cedric Diggory. He didn't get where he was just by being good at school. Think about that, all right?'

'Consider it done,' Harry said, shaking his head as the two Snakes bid him farewell.

Ron was still brooding when Harry sat down between Neville and Dean, so Harry ended up talking to the Longbottom scion for dinner and dessert, mostly about gardening, which Neville nursed a secret passion for. Many would find it intriguing that the stocky boy who excelled at most things physical would love plants, but Harry knew of Neville's kind and nurturing disposition better than they.

Dumbledore stood and everyone fell silent. 'I trust that you are all suitably fed and watered,' he said with a wry twinkle in his eye. There was a general rumble of agreement and mirth. 'Excellent. Now onto the standard proceedings, I'm afraid.'

He rushed through the required rules and notifications that always began the year. Harry noted the brisk pace. The head professor was trying to bring his listeners somewhere else as soon as possible.

'And finally, I would like to announce a tournament.'

The interest peaked at that moment, just as Dumbledore thought it would.

'Over the course of this year, ten members of each house will be selected to enter a competition and meet increasingly difficult challenges along the way. The final eight will form a team with 100 house points to each member. They will be led by our very own Harry Potter to complete one final challenge. Mr Potter will, at the end, choose the finalist who he believes to have delivered the paramount performance and they will receive a monetary prize. He will also take part in the administration and judgment of the challenges.'

Dumbledore looked to Harry, who nodded calmly. He had already been told this before he left for the summer.

'All those who wish to apply can speak to their heads of house. There is an age limit due to its difficulty, only fourth years and above will be able to apply. Ah yes, and I'm afraid that all Quidditch matches will be postponed for the year.' But no one cared. Everyone was keyed up about this tournament, asking each other if they were going to enter or begrudging those who were of age.

'M'God, Harry!' Ron said, apparently forgiving Harry for the price of information. 'Did you know about this?'

'Yes, since before we broke up last school year.'

'And you didn't tell us?'

'Wasn't allowed. You going to enter?'

Ron seemed astonished by the fact that he could, indeed, enter. 'I dunno, Harry, I mean, do you think I'd have a chance?'

'Yeah,' Harry said immediately. 'Why not?'

'Well, I might, yeah.' Harry saw the opportunity fully dawn in his eyes. 'I could do it, you never know.'

'You should enter, guys,' Harry said to everyone in earshot. 'Seriously. Lavender, Parv, are you going to give it a go?'

'I'd get flattened,' Parvati said earnestly. 'Have you seen some of the sixth years?'

'Give yourself a chance.' Harry grinned. 'In the end, McGonagall chooses the Lion shortlist so you might as well sign up.'

'Fine,' Parvati sighed, 'just stop bludgering me, Harry!'

The Lions laughed, and Harry poked his tongue at her good-naturedly. Over at the Badgers' table, Harry was aware of that boy with the bronze hair stirring up his own house. _Cedric Diggory_, Harry remembered: a rising star, prefect for his house, extremely popular. Harry supposed he could see why girls found him attractive. Was that really as powerful as Shafiq had implied?

'What are you looking at Harry?' Neville asked.

'Just people I think will sign up for the tournament.'

Well, that was true as well, wasn't it?

…

'You asked to see me, sir?' Cedric asked, unsure of whether to bow or not in front of the timeless head professor's desk.

'Please, have a seat, Mr Diggory. You're not in trouble.'

Cedric laughed along with the head professor as if on cue and took a seat.

'Lemon drop?' Dumbledore offered the glass jar, and Cedric accepted, probably out of politeness.

'Thank you, sir,' he said and stowed it away for later.

Dumbledore, however, elected to have his now, crunching it loudly. The crackling of lemon pieces echoed brilliantly throughout the office. Cedric didn't flinch once and waited in courteous silence until the man was finished.

'I've heard many positive things about you, Mr Diggory: talented, hardworking, polite, charming and amiable to everyone.'

'Thank you, sir, you are too kind.'

Modest too. He was a lot like Harry in many ways, Dumbledore thought.

'The reason I have called you here is because I want you to teach a fellow student of yours, a couple of years below you.'

'Of course, professor, if you believe me to be the best choice.'

'I do, indeed. The student is Harry Potter.'

'Harry Potter? What could he possibly learn from me? He is very skilled in all fields. He's the _Chosen One_.'

'Indeed, but Harry is going through some…changes that he is uncomfortable with. Very soon, he is going to be seen in a very different light by the majority of society. He needs someone to guide him because, unfortunately, all of his father figures are dead, as you may know.'

'So you want me to help him go through puberty?' Cedric asked, baffled.

Dumbledore laughed. 'In a sense. Girls are noticing him; he's noticing them too. He's frightened and confused. As a future leader of the war, he cannot _afford_ to be frightened and confused. Do you understand, Mr Diggory? I want you to teach him how to be more like you. I want him to be able to charm whoever he pleases, to gain a loyalty that reaches beyond his title, to gain experience.'

'Experience…do you mean...that?' This was hands down the oddest conversation Cedric had ever had. 'But he's only fourteen.'

'He will not be forever, and the poor boy has been constantly forced to grow up quickly. Yes, he needs experience. I see it as another layer of growth and self-control. Do you understand me?'

'Yes, sir.'

'Do you have any further questions?'

'No, sir.'

'Then you may return to your common room.'

'Yes, sir.'

_That man has Harry Potter's whole life planned out or something_, Cedric ruminated as he left.

'And Mr Diggory?'

'Yes, sir?'

'Good luck in the tournament.'

'Thank you.' Cedric was bemused. He hadn't even entered yet. Had the man predicted him to enter and for him to be chosen? Well, perhaps it wasn't so far-fetched, not compared to the idea of helping Harry (to put it bluntly) score with women. 'Bloody hell,' he said, only after he had made sure that the head professor's door was shut.

…

'Ron. Ron, look, she's over there. What are you waiting for?'

Ron sat, immobilised, at the Lions' table, his hair and freckles comically vibrant against his pallid skin. For once, the food on his plate remained untouched. He turned to Harry with wide, baby blue eyes: 'Erm.'

'Come on, Ron. It's just asking. Wait until you're actually in the competition before you start panicking.'

'It's just – it's McGonagall, Harry. She's bloody scary.'

Their eyes both wandered to the front of the hall where she stood tall alongside the other heads of house, her stern countenance wordlessly discouraging any Lion that dared approach her. Harry didn't envy Ron at this point in time.

'Hey, at least it's not Snape.'

'I don't know, Harry.'

'Come on.' Harry gently coaxed Ron out of his seat with patient hands. 'You don't know how it will go until you ask.'

'Sure I do. The way it always goes. I never cut it; I'm never good enough.'

'Ron.' Taking him firmly by the shoulders, Harry just about resisted the urge to shake them. 'You're going to make it into the tournament, ok? Now ask McGonagall to sign you up.'

'Heard, sir,' Ron said with a deliberate sigh, and Harry sent him off with a pat on the back.

'And don't come back pretending that you have when you haven't,' Harry called after him before sliding backwards onto the Ravens' table next to Hermione. They faced in opposite directions, but that was easily rectified when they looked at each other.

'Are you entering, 'Mione?' Harry asked.

Hermione scoffed. 'I highly doubt that I'd make it past the first round.'

'You'd outsmart them all in seconds.'

'This contest is more than just about books and cleverness, Harry.'

'Perhaps,' Harry permitted, shrugging.

'You should sit properly, Harry. It's hard for us to talk to you with your back against the table.'

'I'm watching Ron, making sure he's gone through with it.'

'Ron can look after himself. You don't need to pander to him all the time.'

Harry looked over once more to see Ron talking to McGonagall, looking small and mouse-like even though he had surpassed her height. Still, satisfied with the scene, Harry spun around and tucked his legs under the table where they belonged.

'Harry, nice of your face to join us,' Terry quipped.

'Ha-ha,' Harry replied wryly before sneaking a slice of tomato from Hermione's plate.

She was about to reprimand him when she paused and looked meaningfully ahead. Cedric Diggory was passing by, presumably to apply for the tournament, and staring fixedly at Harry as he went. When Harry noticed him, the older boy smiled briefly and nodded before striding easily on.

'What was all that about?' Harry asked.

'That was Cedric Diggory, wasn't it?' Hermione murmured, voice a lot fainter than Harry was used to. 'Do you know him from lessons?'

'Not any more than most others, no.'

'He's rather handsome, isn't he?'

'What? Hermione!'

'Don't worry, Harry. You'll know him soon,' a pensive voice interjected.

Harry looked across to see Luna Lovegood, the slight girl with wild blonde hair and eyes the shade of colourless dreams, peering at him over her croissant.

'Right, er, thanks Luna,' Harry said, because he was never sure what to make of her abstract statements.

The girl nodded happily and returned to her croissant, pleased to have gotten her message across.

Ron chose that moment to return, collapsing onto Harry's back and clinging on, despite said boy's protests.

'That was scary as the bloody Whole Earth Apocalypse. I said I wanted to enter, and she just stared at me like–' Ron did an impression of McGonagall's severe gaze, scrunching his face up unflatteringly, 'and then I ran away.'

'Great, that's you sorted then,' Harry said. 'I expect to hear your name announced in no time.'

Ron snorted, rather inelegantly, before falling onto the Raven table and setting his hand on the nearest breadbasket he could, obviously trying to fill the space that his expelled anxiety had left inside him.

…

'And Ron Weasley.' A roar worthy of a real lion erupted from the red table, accompanied by a light smattering of applause from the other three. Harry grinned from his place of honour at the front of the hall. It was hard to miss two auburn-haired Lions smother a third as he tried to extricate himself from the table. Finally, the Weasley twins let him go, and Ron staggered to the front on stupefied legs.

Harry steadied him as he arrived before pinning a crimson badge to his chest, as he had done to the other nine Lion champions. 'Told you,' Harry crowed.

Ron was too breathless to retort, simply nodding and walking to stand beside Neville, a somewhat surprising applicant when considering his unassuming personality. Harry looked across the complete row of House Champions, profiling each one. There were people he wasn't surprised to see at all, such as Cedric Diggory, people he was, like Adrian Pucey, and people he wasn't sure what to feel about, such as Cho Chang. He looked away quickly when she caught him and focused hard on Dumbledore's ensuing speech.

'You are now looking at the forty contenders for the first "Soldier of the Year award". This will be a gruelling competition, fraught with trials and no small amount of danger. But let us not reflect on the hardships, for they are plenty in life and, indeed, war. This is a celebration; of skill, of vitality, of house loyalty, of sheer human resilience.

'Do not be disheartened if you have not been chosen, for your part in this is as big as any of these forty. I expect you all to show your full support, encouragement and commitment.

'The first stage of the contest is yet to be revealed. The date and nature of each stage will be decided by myself, Professor Moody, Professor Lupin, Professor Slughorn, a representative from the Ministry, Barty Crouch,' there was furious chatter at this, 'and our very own Harry Potter.' And the angry buzz melted into lightness again.

They were dismissed and Harry, with a small groan, squeezed through the crowd to find Hermione and tread the dreaded path to Solar Chemistry. About fifteen fourth years, all that were left of the year group's willing chemists, assembled themselves in the dismal corridor.

Among the unfortunates was a conspicuous abundance of Snakes, who seemed to like it here in the dank bowels of the school. They were headed by Malfoy, who hadn't changed much since first year apart from becoming paler, pointier and a lot more venomous.

His eyes were honed for Harry, and he struck as soon as the Chosen One was in earshot. '_You're_ going to be behind this contest, Potter? I'm surprised they trust you not to kill them all off.'

Hermione's hand at Harry's arm was a reminder to keep his anger in check. He nodded, squeezing the hand to show that he was in control. But Malfoy wasn't finished yet.

'What do you bet, Zabini?' Malfoy asked with a smug flourish. 'How long do you reckon the "champions" will last with Potter in charge?'

'I am perfectly capable of _helping_ to orchestrate a safe contest for everyone involved, Malfoy,' Harry said before he could help it. 'Your comments are irrelevant and unneeded, as usual.'

'Irrelevant? I'm just a student trying to voice a genuine concern. After all, you have quite the track record, don't you?' Malfoy's cruel smirk was anything but concerned. He bared his teeth as he seized upon his next sentence; he had an uncanny knack for knowing exactly what to say to Harry. 'The people around you tend to drop dead. I'd watch out, Granger, you're probably next.'

Harry stepped in front of Hermione, assuming an offensive stance. 'You don't know what you're talking about, Malfoy. Shut up before you say something irreversibly stupid.'

'It's true though, isn't it? Your turncoat godfather, your useless father, your filthy, common mudblooded mother–'

Malfoy clammed up quickly with Harry's solar gun pointing at his head, its pulsating, furious green mirrored eerily by Harry's eyes. 'You don't know _shit_ about my mother!'

Hermione wasn't impressed. 'Harry!'

'Potter!'

Harry slid his gun quickly back into his holster as Snape stormed towards the excitable congregation. The solar chemist descended on him with icy rage. 'Detention, Potter, for a month, starting this evening.'

'You didn't let me explain–'

'There is no need to explain. If I see you pointing that atrocious device at anyone again, I will personally see to your expulsion, Chosen One or not. You are not a hero; you are not a soldier; you are an ignorant little boy, and the sooner you realise that, the better. Everyone inside.'

Harry fumed, and Hermione was once again at his side. Draco Malfoy's petrified expression hadn't been worth the tradeoff, especially as the boy himself drifted in after Snape, grinning conceitedly as if he hadn't been cowering from Harry mere seconds ago.

'Oh Harry, I know that what he said was awful, but you shouldn't have gotten so angry.'

'I know!' Harry snapped before sighing. 'I know,' he repeated in a gentler tone as Hermione had flinched away. 'I just can't help it sometimes, getting angry.'

'You have a lot to be angry about.'

'A lot of things to be happy about too,' Harry added, hugging Hermione's shoulders with a small smile. 'Come on, before Snape gets spitty again.'

The rest of the day was tolerable. His thoughts weren't really in the lessons; he knew most of the content already anyway. He was dogged by pupils, competitors and non-competitors alike, all trying to pry information about the upcoming challenge. Harry had to tell them, in mostly polite terms, to blast off and mind their own business.

Detention with Snape was almost a form of relief. Away from the noise and the stifling heat of people, Harry began to understand why Snape liked it down in the dungeons. And that was where his empathy for the slimy teacher ended.

'Come in, Potter,' Snape drawled from inside, eyes never leaving the papers that he was marking.

The boy who entered looked more like James than Snape had ever seen him: tall and wiry and dark and handsome, and all the envy that he had felt for his popular schoolmate manifested now. Then curiosity stepped over. The boy had left that detestable, lanky frame behind for good last year, growing into a much less ungainly shape than his father had ever managed. The effortless way he carried himself, the sober expression on his face and, of course, those green eyes brought another altogether different wave of nostalgia.

In order to distract himself from these disturbing thoughts, he remarked: 'Before we begin, I should inquire into the reason for your senseless attempt at an attack.'

'If you heard what he said about my mother, you'd have done it too,' Potter said simply, gaze never faltering.

Snape looked away first, discomfited by the sheer familiarity of that stare, the identicalness. 'You are to clean the equipment: beakers, test tubes, flasks et cetera. Then you may leave.'

Harry nodded and set to work, trying to shake the uneasy feeling of Snape's eyes lingering on him wherever he moved. The detention was short, and Harry was promptly dismissed, informed that he didn't need to return tomorrow. He left the classroom in a slight daze, baffled by his most hated teacher's sudden leniency.

On the way back to his common room, he intercepted Cedric Diggory, the prefect on patrol. Harry was used to wandering around the castle after curfew, and most of the prefects turned a blind eye towards his nightly exploits. However, he had never been "caught" by Diggory before, and felt the need to explain himself.

'I'm not breaking the rules,' Harry told Diggory when he stopped expectantly in front of him. 'I just came back from detention. So, in a sense, I've already broken the rules, and this is the innocent part.'

Diggory nodded. 'That's all very good, Harry, but I wasn't going to talk to you about that.'

Harry blinked, rather expressively. 'Ok. What do you want?'

Diggory smiled pleasantly. 'My feint-cuts could do with a bit of work.'

Harry blinked again, even more expressively. 'Sabre-play? I've seen you in duels, trust me, Diggory. You're the best in the year, one of the best in the school.'

'Indulge me, Harry. I want to learn from the master.'

'I'm not a master at anything,' Harry muttered. 'Why don't you ask McGonagall?'

'She's not half as approachable as you, Harry. I might as well ask you now, before you get too intimidating,' Diggory quipped.

Harry just stared. He wasn't aware that Diggory had a sense of humour. In fact, he wasn't even aware that the boy was capable of stringing a sentence together. He had just demonstrated both.

Harry sighed. 'All right, but if this is an attempt to one-up the competition–'

'Of course not,' Diggory said with all the earnestness of a Badger. Of course, how could Harry forget that he was part of the house of honesty and reliability? 'That's also why I'm asking you now, before details of the challenges are affirmed. Then you wouldn't be able to help me justifiably.'

'Name a time and place,' Harry said gruffly. He had a strong urge for a warm bed.

'Training room 1, tomorrow, eight in the evening?'

'Sure.'

They shook on it, exchanged respectful nods before parting their separate ways, one of them beaming, the other completely flummoxed. Between the unusually merciful teacher and the oddly outspoken Badger, Harry had enough weariness to fuel a good night's sleep.

* * *

Thank you for everyone's continued support. **pawsrule: **I'm glad you enjoyed this alternate version of Harry and Hermione becoming friends. Yes, I think skipping to the fourth year will save my sanity as much as will the readers'. **RCPMione: **I was also dubious when the plot bunny dictated space and non-magic as I am a fantasy author through and through, but I'm glad you think it works! I hope you continue to think so as the story progresses.

As always, feel free to give your invaluable feedback. Reviews will be loved, treasured and most probably replied to. Unless they scare me.


	13. Chapter 13

Deepest apologies for the delay! In the last chapter I came up to the end of my pre-written material, and during this one, I got a serious case of writer's block. I know what will happen in this story's future and have all the major milestones plotted. Now it's just a case of working out how to get to each one.

Also, this chapter is a bit silly since I'm still working my way out of writing Christmas-themed fluffiness.

* * *

Harry was a man of his word, arriving punctually in practice gear: a white tank top, gold-lined combat trousers and flat, flexible shoes. Harry's sabre, a fourteenth birthday gift from Remus, shone magnificently at his hip.

Not too far into the informal lesson, Cedric began to see exactly why so many of his yeargroup went to Harry for help. The boy was a natural teacher, patient and demanding where it was needed. He was straightforward, never aiming to impress with colourful vocabulary or extended information, but only selecting the words he needed to articulate the point clearly. Cedric, naturally able as he was, excelled under Harry's tutelage.

They eased themselves onto a bench after an intensive hour of duelling, smiling tentatively at each other when they both unearthed their water flasks. While Harry drank, Cedric scouted his person as discreetly as he could, Dumbledore's request lingering in his mind. Harry was, Cedric tentatively admitted, rather attractive, supporting the head professor's claims that the boy was indeed receiving heightened attention. As for the "frightened and confused" part, that was where things deviated. The Chosen One had yet to show any typically awkward traits of adolescence. In fact, on observation, Harry seemed more like a fully-fledged warrior trapped in a teenager's body. Though a highly-developed one, Cedric noted, slightly astounded by the way Harry's top stretched over his rippling torso. That sort of musculature wasn't normal for a fourteen year old, was it?

Harry caught him staring but didn't comment, instead pinning Cedric to the bench with reflective eyes and waiting.

'Is there a girl you like, Harry?' Cedric blurted out.

Harry didn't reply immediately, frowning at Cedric over his water bottle. 'Er, why?'

Cedric wondered how to play this, given that he wasn't a master manipulator or an archetypal Snake. He went for the amicable, "all homs together" approach. 'I was just wondering. You've got to be thinking about it, right? Popular hom like you?'

And here the bumbling teenager emerged. Harry flushed and mumbled something indecipherable though from the tone, Cedric guess it was something akin to: 'none of your blasting business!'

Cedric could sort of see what Dumbledore had meant now. It was like a fault in his otherwise controlled demeanour, an insight into the self-doubting boy that Harry would have been under another destiny, a reminder that he was human still, and not the unassailable myth that even his peers had come to view him as. The head professor's wishes were clear: make Harry as perfect, as untouchable, as insuperable as possible. Harry had to overcome this, and Cedric was there to help him. If Harry let him, that was.

'You don't have to tell me who,' Cedric persisted.

Harry exhaled rather sharply, weariness telling him to relent but wariness maintaining the guarded glint in his eye. 'Sure, fine, I do.' And then Harry's eyes narrowed, silently demanding to know what Cedric could possibly do with such information.

Cedric just smiled impishly. 'Are you going to ask her out?'

'No.' Harry looked possibly alarmed at the thought.

'Why not?'

'Because…' Harry physically clawed the air for the words that evaded him, 'because…I don't know. I don't even know her that well. And – and she's probably already got a boyfriend and even if she hadn't, I probably wouldn't be a good one anyway. I just don't know how it works.'

'Hey, I never said first love was easy,' Cedric said. 'It's so much better and worse than you could ever imagine it to be. But you can't delay it forever. You've got to let it happen and, yes, in the beginning, you'll probably be crap, but come on, you're allowed to be, right? You must have been bad at sabre-play once, but now look at you. You got better, you will get better.

'Besides, you wouldn't be the only one with big expectations on you. Imagine being the girl cruising with the Chosen One. She'd probably be too much in awe of you to care how bad at being a boyfriend you were.'

'Oh please. It's just a name. Surely you know that.'

'Yes, but that name has created something brilliant in you. It's driven you to become someone that everyone admires and respects. That was all you.'

Cedric didn't know why every other sentence he spoke got Harry to pause, impossibly vivid eyes blown wide with silent confusion. But it did, and Cedric felt rather proud because of it. 'Anyone would be thrilled to be with you, Harry. Not the Chosen One, _you_,' he added with an earnestness that surprised even himself.

'Sure.' Harry nodded, edging away from Cedric just slightly. 'Ok.'

'You don't believe me?'

'No, I do, sure,' Harry said as if he was appeasing an excitable puppy. He got up, stretched languidly, and angled himself towards the exit. 'Well, I hope that helped. Your sabre-play, I mean. You already improved, so…I guess we're just about done here.'

Cedric inwardly swore. Harry was leaving, and they had gone nowhere near Dumbledore's plan. 'I can help you, you know.'

Harry stopped but didn't turn, instead tucking his hands in his pockets and looking to the ground. 'What do you want?'

'Nothing!' Cedric replied hurriedly. 'I just want to help.'

'You're not the first person to try it, you know,' Harry said over his shoulder, eyes attaining a rather acidic quality. 'Everyone thinks that they can sneak information about the contest out of me. Though I must say, offering to sort out my love life to get it is a new approach.'

'It's not like that.'

'What's your gain then?'

Cedric couldn't just tell Harry, could he? Dumbledore had evidently taken great care in manipulating, oops, crafting the Chosen One into the ultimate being, moulding the school and all of its students to fit around him. With one fumbled word, Cedric could botch his well-laid plans. 'Can't you just…trust me?'

Harry chuckled humourlessly. 'No, no I can't. Don't take it personally or anything. That's just what I've been taught.'

'But I chose to go here. I've been here for four years. I'm on your side.'

'Yeah, but you haven't talked to me until now.' Harry turned to face him fully, arms tightly folded. 'Now, when I just happen to be a judge and game maker in a contest that you're participating in. Besides, you being part of the student body doesn't mean anything to me. I mean, look at people like Draco Malfoy or Zacharias Smith. People earn my trust, one by one, as I get to know them.'

Harry's gaze bore mercilessly into him even as he said this and extended into the silence, wearing Cedric down without need for words. 'Dumbledore put me up to this.' Cedric expelled this confession hurriedly, as if to force it as far away from him as possible.

Harry did not seem outwardly surprised or worse, enraged, by this admission. 'Dumbledore?' he asked mildly.

'He said that you needed to, er, know how to deal with the opposite gender.' Cedric winced apologetically.

'Did he now?'

'Yeah, I mean, well, he said that girls were looking at you, and you were uncomfortable with it.'

Harry's composed demeanour slipped: his mouth clamped in a mirthless smile, his eyes flicked restlessly between the corners of the room, his cheeks flushed. 'It's not…I…'

'I can help,' Cedric pressed on, regaining some of his Badger-like optimism, 'He wants me to help you get over this awkward bit of growing up, so you don't have to worry anymore.'

'Hmm.'

'I haven't offended you?' Cedric asked quickly.

'No, not really.

The Badger stood and paced towards Harry, eyeing him thoughtfully. 'You know, you get twitchy when you're embarrassed.'

Harry tripped over his own feet as he attempted to retreat.

'And clumsy,' Cedric added with a wry grin.

Harry checked his balance with a wince.

'And your stoicism, poise, all that training just drops like that. Is this _you_, Harry? Harry the boy? The kid behind all the schooling and public perception? Is this what you were like before training?'

Now the topic had strayed enough, Harry settled back into practised equanimity and studied Cedric carefully. 'I don't really remember much from before training to be honest,' said Harry.

'Oh…when did you start?'

'Four.'

'Four? You were four when they started training you to fight that war-mongering psychopath?'

'Well, I was unborn when I was first prophesied to do just that.'

Cedric had nothing to say worth this boy's harsh reality, so he shamefacedly settled for, 'Ah Merlin, that's dark.'

'No, that's life. I hardly know any different, so don't waste your brain feeling sorry about it.'

'Let me help then, instead of being sorry. You want to know something different? Girls are it. The Beard has spoken, we must all obey.'

Despite himself, Harry grinned. 'Do they really call Dumbledore "the Beard"?'

'It's a bloody stellar beard, com. It practically defines him.'

Harry shook his head slowly. 'Nah, it's the lemon drops.'

'Merlin, forgot about those. He's got a whole jar on his desk, doesn't he?'

'Absolutely packed full.'

'Does he make you take some as well?'

'Ad infinitum.'

It was like an unspoken code, a verification of sorts. In a few sentences, Harry had managed to determine that Cedric was indeed working for Dumbledore. Only a select few saw the man's office, and even fewer got a lemon drop.

'You wily Snake. See, even if I was really after your data, I wouldn't get a byte. You'd outgun me at every turn. So what do you say?'

Harry still looked as if he was going to shy away, and that was not a term that Cedric would ever link to the Chosen One's behaviour. Eventually, he took Cedric's hand and shook it. 'If the Beard wants this thing done, then I guess I have no choice in the matter anyway.'

...

Nowadays, the whole of Hogwarts castle rose early to begin their regimented morning exercises. The requisite waking time was 06:00 and mandatory drills were at 7:00, but Harry and Neville elected to commence the day an hour earlier still and get out onto the fields before the crush of the main student body could overpopulate them. There were other training areas, gyms and obstacle rooms, but the field was the Chosen One's chosen ground, and where he went, his fellow trainees rushed to follow.

'I don't know if I should be training with you anymore,' Neville said as the two boys eased themselves into some warm-up stretches, 'now that you're on the panel for the contest.'

'You should,' Harry replied, pulling one arm across his chest with the other, 'because it won't make a difference either way.'

'But how do you trust me to–?'

'Nev, do you even know yourself at all? You're a Badger in red and the last person on Five who'd feel justified using our friendship for gain.'

'What if people don't believe that though? If I do well–'

Harry snorted. '_If_ you do well.'

'–what stops people from thinking that it's because we practise together in the mornings?'

'If they came to that conclusion, they'd also have to believe that I would be either blindly trusting enough to miss the fact that I'm leaking information or unethical enough to show outward favouritism to particular competitors. Would they think that of me?'

Neville watched his boots form depressions in the grass, face apologetically pink. Not for the first time, Harry had the urge to seize his training partner and shake the diffidence out of him. He leniently settled for a verbal equivalent.

'Crouch is coming to meet the rest of the game committee today,' he said.

It probably wasn't the best thing to say after all. Neville shrieked, covered his ears and probably would have fled the field if Harry hadn't grabbed his arm first.

'For Merlin's sake, Nev. What's got into you?'

'You can't tell me about that stuff, Harry!'

'Simmer down, there's no expo talk here, I'm just trying to confide in a friend. Hear me out. The world's about to get heavy, at least let me shrug my shoulders a bit while I still can.'

Harry suppressed a sigh as Neville fell back into shame and self-incrimination. This boy was one of the finest soldiers Harry had ever seen despite his fourteen years. Everyone in the damn school saw it except the one person who mattered. 'Sorry, Harry. What's the problem?'

Harry nodded, released him and stepped away. 'I'm…apprehensive about meeting him.'

Neville laughed. 'You? Apprehensive?' With one look from Harry, Neville stoppered his amusement and stowed it away for later. 'Well, why?'

'He's the Ministry's man, and you know what the Ministry think about this school.'

'They want it gone.'

'No, they want it completely obliterated, almost as badly as they wanted that for Voldemort. In fact, they may as well think of us as the new Voldemort, the new public enemy.'

'Because us existing keeps Voldemort alive in the population's eyes,' Neville said, shaking his head. 'And for good reason too. But what does it all matter, Harry? Crouch is just one man. What's the most he can do by himself?'

'That's the thing though. He's not by himself. The Ministry authorised this. Dumbledore and the Ministry cooperating? You have to admit there's something wrong about that.'

'True.'

'And there's more. Hermione's been doing some research on the man.'

'Naturally,' was Neville's fond reply.

'The man was an avid persecutor of Death Eaters during the war,' Harry said. 'Apparently he was ruthless, doling out life imprisonments and death sentences without compassion.'

'Surely that's a good thing.'

'Is it? With the Death Eaters supposedly gone: dead, locked up or exonerated, that leaves the rest of the world open to him. He's relentless, fastidious, do you think people can just turn that off because the need is gone? It's not a skill or a personality trait; it's a way of thinking, of being.' Harry thought of Moody, always thorough in his paranoia. Constant vigilance. 'He'll be as he was back then, maybe even trying to suppress his killer instinct in this snatched peace, but all he needs is a whiff of something new to purge and prosecute and the bloody gloves will go right back on.'

'Are you're saying that _we_ could be targets?' Neville asked with wishful disbelief.

'All I'm saying is that the Ministry might look at Dumbledore and see him training an army that they can't control to fight an enemy they don't believe in. As long as we don't have the opportunity to prove ourselves as heroes, we could start resembling Death Eaters instead. And isn't it interesting that Crouch was the man they chose to send over?'

There was a grim set to both of their features when they looked back at the castle, but Neville's cleared first. 'Pep up, Harry. We're training to take down Voldemort. Compared to him, the Ministry's a simulator game.' When Harry didn't look too reassured, Neville took his shoulder. 'Let's run for a bit, yeah?'

If Neville ended up regretting his suggestion as he trailed Harry's ferocious pace on the umpteenth lap, he never voiced it, partly because he didn't have the breath to spare. By the time Harry had deemed them adequately exercised, Neville looked fit to collapse.

'You know what?' Harry said, breathing heavily through his grinning mouth, 'I actually do feel a bit better.'

'That's great,' wheezed Neville, keeling over.

Harry went to sit behind him, letting his head loll in his hands. 'You all right?'

'Not particularly,' Neville chuckled, leaning his cheek against the grass. He was contemplating letting his eyes fall shut, when uniformed figures crawling on the skewed horizon caught his attention. 'Look who's up. The rest of the school. Harry, you spit, did you make me bloody sprint for over an hour?'

The green-eyed boy chuckled breathlessly, catching Neville's limp punch. 'We weren't sprinting for the whole time.'

'A bloody big fraction of it.'

'You're fine.'

'I'm lying incapacitated on the ground,' Neville protested.

The students Neville had spotted made their cautious way over. A bundle of fifth years assembled in loose rows in front of them, their bodies tensed as they unconsciously stood to attention.

'Harry Potter, sir,' a short, stocky Raven that Neville recognised as Marcus Belby said, 'permission to train with you and Longbottom.'

'Granted,' Harry said, getting to his feet, 'though we've already warmed up and had our morning run, so I was just going to revise some combat techniques.'

Belby looked keen in the subdued way of a devout partisan. 'May we join you, sir?'

'Sure,' Harry murmured, 'go ahead and warm up.'

While the elder students did so, Neville regained his breath and plied Harry with an increasingly obvious series of entertained looks.

'Not a word,' Harry warned him.

'Yes, Harry Potter sir,' Neville replied mildly.

It ended up being a masterclass of sorts. Neville watched divertedly as the fifth years attacked Harry one by one, the unengaged huddling together in shivering knots while they awaited their turn. Three years of training seemed to melt away in the face of the revered Harry Potter.

For one of them, fear transmuted itself into frenetic aggression, but Harry easily dodged his wild swings. 'Guard yourself,' Harry said, striking his opponent wherever he left himself open and quickly bringing him down.

The next combatant guarded himself too much, holding his fists close to his face and turning as Harry circled him. If Harry stepped towards him, he nimbly danced backwards to restore the distance between them. At least this person knew how to move. When Harry roared at him, the boy actually shrieked and fell backwards, and Harry dealt with him quickly. 'Don't show fear. Showing your fear is the first step towards losing the fight.'

Thankfully, the students that followed were a lot better, naturally predisposed to the visceral arts as well as the intellectual. Harry had tailor-made guidance for each. 'Watch your feet,' he said. 'Keep moving.' '_Watch_ your opponent.' 'Loose shoulders.'

To a particularly skilled challenger – Neville really wasn't the most attentive with names – Harry said, 'Try kicking forward.' The girl looked perplexed by the instruction that didn't seem to fit the fight, yet she obeyed him anyway. He seized the flying leg and kicked the other leg out from underneath her.

'Trust those instincts of yours,' Harry told her as she staggered up again. 'When we fight, I'm not just your teacher, I'm your enemy. I might not always be helping you with the things I say, but the things I _do_ you can always trust.' And then he was onto the next.

Even as Harry threw his latest assailant to the ground, all the while justly critiquing her balance and attack, an unusually wily Raven crept up from behind. Since Neville was facing Harry at the moment, he could see the unadulterated fear on the Raven's face, the shake of comically outstretched hands, the beading of sweat on his upper lip. Before Neville could shout a warning, Harry caught the Raven's striking hand, spun around and disassembled the boy with a couple of precise kicks.

'Nice try.' Harry sounded amused. 'Too bad I could hear you breathing so loudly I might as well have seen you. The horrified looks on your friends' faces didn't help either.' He looked to the others. 'I want you to forget who I am or what's honourable or not in organised combat. Carmichael here showed initiative by attacking in my blind spot. That's what we'll have to do. Use the blind spots, outnumber where we can, distract, misdirect, exploit their weaknesses. I know it doesn't sound fair, but war isn't fair. It doesn't adhere to rules or formalities. It's more than skill and finesse. It's about getting your enemies before they get you.'

The fifth years nodded, clicking their boots together and barking, 'Heard, sir!', but Harry felt their discomfort as if it were his own. It had been once. That was until Moody had painfully drilled the sportsmanship out of him by playing every underhanded trick in the book against him during their routine skirmishes.

Harry was rounding up the session, meeting his elders' questions with reluctant authority, when Carmichael attempted to sneak up on him again. Neville sighed and tripped him, sending him sprawling at Harry's feet.

'Neville,' Harry said, frowning.

The Lion shrugged. 'He was so absorbed in trying to catch you off guard, he was completely prone to being caught off guard himself.'

Harry nodded with a small smile. 'Make a note of that, Carmichael.'

'Heard, sir,' Carmichael groaned from the floor.

'Really, just Harry is fine. Now, since Neville is feeling so instructive all of a sudden, who wants to watch him and me spar?'

The enthusiastic response was enough to make Neville lament the receding dream of a peaceful morning.

…

So caught up had Harry been in their morning practice that he and Neville were late to the morning drill and relentlessly heckled by Moody over it. Harry bore the brunt of the abuse, an example to the other students even as he erred. Drills only left everyone with fifteen minutes to perform their daily ablutions and gather their things if they wanted to catch the start of breakfast. At the Lion table, Harry inserted himself between Ron and a visiting Hermione while Neville sat opposite, already regaling Dean, Seamus and the twins with the latest story of Harry's madcap resilience.

Hermione took one exacting look at the black-haired boy, who was gathering more food onto his plate than he could feasibly eat, and said, 'Oh, is he coming today?'

Harry froze, even as Ron edged a 'Who?' through his mouthful of bacon.

'You mean Bartemius Crouch?' Neville suggested. Hermione nodded her affirmation.

'How did you know he was arriving today? I only told Nev so far.'

'You tried to fix your hair,' Hermione pointed out.

Harry's hands subconsciously flew to his hair, smoothing down the mutinous tufts that had already sprung back into their original unruliness. 'Well, that's the first time someone actually noticed, so I must be doing something right.'

'Keep hoping,' Neville said with a chuckle.

'And you haven't brought any school equipment, so you won't be attending lessons. You've never boycotted before so it must be something official.' Hermione smiled with learnt humility. 'Sort of obvious really.'

'Yeah, so obvious,' Ron said with exaggerated earnestness.

'You don't have to be nervous, Harry,' Hermione continued, unperturbed.

'Who says I'm nervous?' In fact, he prided himself on presenting what he thought was a composed deportment as he listened to his friends laugh and joke.

'Honestly, Harry, you two rushing in late to _Moody's_ drill means that you've been overworking yourself and poor Neville too.'

'Poor Neville,' Neville echoed.

'You always overdo it when you're anxious about something.'

'Glad I'm so easy to read,' Harry said. 'It's not like I had classes for that or anything.'

'Don't worry, com. I didn't notice that you were nervous,' said Ron with a supportive nod.

'You wouldn't notice if that meat platter you call a breakfast meal came back to life and bit you on the nose,' said George.

'I would!'

'Eat your veg, Ronniekins,' Fred ordered.

Harry embraced this topical departure, laughing with the rest as the Weasley boys began another famed, familial quarrel. Around them, the setting was already shifting, students embarking noisily for class.

'Chang,' Ron coughed meaningfully, spotting the object of Harry's unworldly affections first.

As Cho walked past, she sent Harry a pretty smile. In the process of returning it, he spilt juice everywhere. He promptly decided that he'd rather be facing Voldemort than the giggling, flushed faces of her and her friends.

'Oh Harry,' said Hermione exasperatedly, even as the rest of his so-called allies burst into fits of laughter.

'Behold everyone, our future commander,' Fred gestured grandly.

'Eat piss, Gred,' Harry murmured, dabbing at his chin with one of Hermione's conveniently available tissues.

'One does not eat piss, Harry, one drinks it.'

'You would know,' George cackled.

Harry snorted. 'Ingest, consume, imbibe, it really doesn't matter to me.'

'Can we not over the breakfast table?' Hermione grimaced. 'You're all disgusting.' She found a sympathetic ear in Neville. 'I've only just come to realisation that most of my close friends are male.'

'You need to work on your observation skills, Hermione,' Neville said, flabbergasted.

'All right, have to meet Dumbledore now. Have fun in class, kids.'

'With your juice-stained clothes?' Hermione asked.

'Oh Merlin!' Harry stood up quickly and looked down. 'Huh, all clean. Guess I missed. Lucky that.' He bid goodbye to everyone, slapped Ron on the shoulder and wrapped his arm around Hermione's head in a clumsy hug, leaving the room with a run poorly disguised as a walk.

'You're right,' Ron said to Hermione, 'he's shitting himself.'

…

'Do you doubt my judgement, Harry?' Dumbledore asked as they left the castle, Harry finding it a lot easier to match his long-legged stride than he used to.

'Of course not, sir. You're wiser than I am, and you've been familiar with the Ministry's movements and motivations for decades.'

'But…?'

Harry quickly relented. 'Why did you request them to send a representative over to help judge a competition that stands for everything they're against? I mean, it will probably be dangerous and aggressively competitive, and the only thing it could teach students about it how to fight a man that the Ministry insists is dead. Why did you even think they'd agree?'

'Ah, but they did agree.'

'Why though?'

'It could be for any number of reasons.'

'They could, but what do you think, sir?'

'Since the school's conception, we have managed to conceal the,' Dumbledore grasped for a word, '_exact_ details of its curriculum, for reasons you should well know. So naturally, when I offered the adjudication position, they leapt at the chance to insert a Ministry man into the proceedings to take note of what exactly our finest students are learning here.'

'I don't understand. Why would you give them that opportunity?'

'Because perhaps the only way to convince them of this school's merit is to let them see it for themselves.'

Dumbledore had a magical sense of timing. He had barely finished his sentence before a copter loomed large above the treeline of the Forbidden Forest. Harry watched alertly, rifle in hand, as it came to land a couple of hundred metres from where they stood. Two Aurors of the policing branch, their crimson garb tailored more towards flair than functionality, were the first to pile out and scope the open field with superstitious glances and solar handguns.

'What are they expecting?' Harry asked, 'an army of teenagers to burrow up from the earth and tear them to pieces?'

'They are Mr Crouch's armed guard, as befits his rank as a Ministry diplomat.' Dumbledore reminded Harry patiently. 'It is their job to be suspicious or,' and his eyes twinkled, 'constantly vigilant.'

'I'm not saying anything against them securing the area. I just don't see why they have to look so scared about it. They could at least pretend to trust us.'

Once the school grounds were declared free of all danger, Mr Crouch himself descended from the copter. The man had an unnerving preciseness about him, like a line drawing that had been scrupulously shaded in with myriad variations of grey. His hair was sleek and uniform as a polished steel, parted neatly down the centre. Even the creases in his face were orderly and symmetrical, though Harry knew they had seen the turbulent darkness of the world.

'Bartemius,' the head professor greeted cordially, shaking the man's hand, 'welcome to the Official Order of the Phoenix School.'

'Yes,' Mr Crouch fixed the school behind them with an appraising eye, 'though I shan't be staying long. Only enough for a brief tour and a preliminary meeting.'

'Of course.'

And suddenly Harry found himself the focus of the man's gimlet eye. Harry straightened further, burying his unease.

'Is this him, your living legend?' Crouch reached up and lifted Harry's fringe to see the lightning scar. Harry's hackles were raised. He could have caught the man's arm before it even touched him, twisted it, used the man's weight to break it, but who knew what would become of the school then? All he could do was meet the man's gaze and hide a snarl as the man traced the scar with his thumb.

'I should think that an unnecessary question to ask.'

'Indeed.' Crouch released him, and Harry almost expected him to wipe his hands with two neat strokes.

'It's a pleasure to meet you, Mr Crouch,' Harry lied through his teeth.

'Oh, he talks, does he? Very well, Mr Potter, I shall put a question to you. Do you believe that all these drastic measures Mr Dumbledore's Order of the Phoenix has taken is necessary? Seizing children from their homes and turning them into weapons?'

'I do, Mr Crouch. Soon, these weapons will be the only people standing between the public and the Dark Lord.'

Crouch laughed, a dry, humourless sound. 'What would you know about combating the Dark Lord and his Death Eater scum? I've been rounding them up since before you could walk.'

'From behind your desk,' Harry retorted. Dumbledore's hand on his shoulder reminded him to master himself.

Crouch studied him, his face a mask of austerity. 'You do not seem to be aware of how precarious this school's position is, Mr Potter. The belief that its purpose is redundant is…may not be shared by all,' he admitted with audible reluctance, 'but the view that its manner of education yields arrogant, impertinent, savage children would be less subjective.'

'Then, we shall simply have to use this tournament to demonstrate how disciplined, intelligent and adaptable these students are.'

'We shall see, Mr Dumbledore,' Crouch said, striding past them towards the castle, his aurors flanking him.

'Calm, Harry,' Dumbledore said as they began to follow.

'Yes, sir,' Harry replied.

* * *

**AN: **Thank you to everyone for your patience and I hope you enjoyed it. **Pawsrule**: You can trust me on this. Harmony is the definite endgame (I love them too!), but slow-building relationships with a few twists and obstacles are my favourite. **RemiccoLim: **I'm so glad that you think that everyone's in character! That's what I was really striving for even in this alien environment. Thank you very much.


	14. Chapter 14

**Warnings: **a Cedric Diggory with a personality and humour only an author could love.

* * *

Mr Crouch regarded the whole of Hogwarts Castle – the food hall, the classrooms and gymnasiums, the grand library, the hi-tech comp and simulator rooms – with the same censorious gaze, but the students themselves he eyed as if they were alien beasts and he was the researcher charged with gauging their deadliness. His judgements seemed almost immediate: dismissing the students who sat benignly at their desks, tackling algebra and physics and war history and watching those that happened to be drilling on the fields, shooting on the ranges or duelling in the combat rooms with deep mistrust.

'They hardly look like children,' he murmured as they witnessed one student win a sabre duel with a brutal volley of strikes.

'A sacrifice we must make for the good of mankind,' Dumbledore said solemnly. 'Though I assure you that they have in many ways kept their youthful exuberance.'

The Order students demonstrated this by staring curiously at the foreigner in their hallways, whispering explanations and theories before regaining some semblance of discipline when they saw that their head professor and the Chosen One were walking beside him.

The meeting took place at the school's lunch hour in the staff meeting room, a sleek, wood-panelled room in one of the castle's many turrets whose floor-to-ceiling windows afforded the dwellers a full 360 view of the school and its estates beneath them. In the centre of the rounded room was a long, Net and holo-enabled table at which Dumbledore took pride of place. Harry sat on his right, much to Severus Snape's chagrin, and Bartemius Crouch was offered the seat to Dumbledore's left. Snape mercifully elected to take the chair next to Crouch, and Slughorn sat beyond him. Moody thudded heavily into the seat beside Harry's, leaving Remus to even the sides' numbers.

Dumbledore smiled benevolently at his assembled panel before beginning the discussion. 'Now, let us see about this tournament, its structure. How many rounds should it include for instance? And how many students should be eliminated at a time?'

'Surely that would depend on the nature of the rounds themselves,' Slughorn spoke up. 'I believe that the most important conclusion that we can come to today is what exactly we want to be assessing in these candidates.'

'Whatever it takes to make them the best soldiers,' Harry said, trying not to look too surprised when the majority of adults listened respectfully. 'Good combat skills, astuteness, agility, resourcefulness, the ability to follow orders but perform intelligently without them.'

'Indeed,' said Dumbledore, steepling his fingers before his face.

'There surely has to be some one-on-one combat in there,' Remus said. 'It would be an easy way to assess one candidate's combat skills against another's and halve numbers.'

'With or without sabres?' Slughorn enquired.

'If they're going to be sent into battle with sabres, we might as well include them here,' Harry suggested.

Other nodded. Crouch was frozen in seeming horror. 'Does the dubious safety of this not concern you at all?'

'I assure you, Bartemius, the students will be completely safe. As a member of this panel, you will be able to ascertain this for yourself.'

'And their parents have agreed to this, have they?'

'Indeed, no child was enrolled into the tournament, or indeed this school, without their parents' permission. All immediate relatives are cordially invited to witness each round as well.'

Crouch sat back, pale and inflexible.

'What about an obstacle course for the first round?' Harry proposed, glancing at Moody out of the corner of his eye. 'Good for all the basics: speed, skill, endurance, quick thinking, problem solving, evaluating your surroundings. I always found them useful for honing my performance. We could time trial it too, eliminate as many or as few as we want.'

'Excellent idea, m'boy,' Slughorn said.

Snape shot him a distasteful side glance before saying, 'And what exactly would this course consist of?'

'Leave that to me,' both Harry and Moody said before looking incredulously at each other.

'With all due respect, sir, back out,' Harry said with a sharp smile. 'This is my idea.'

'In case you've forgotten, lad, I'm the one who introduced you to the wonder of obstacle courses in the first place.'

'If you designed the course, you would genuinely kill those students.'

Even as Harry and Mad-eye continued to bicker with playful malice, Mr Crouch looked fit to pass out on the other side of the table.

…

Harry took an almost perverse pleasure in the way Crouch's face was as grey as his suit by the time the meeting disbanded. Dumbledore easily read him with his laser-like gaze, looking disapproving, and Harry bit his lip until his desire to grin had all but gone. Sometimes he was tempted to remind the adults who clustered his life that he was ultimately a fourteen-year-old kid who reserved the right to laugh at inappropriate moments once in a while. The time, however, had never seemed quite right to do so. They always had a new bit of politics to feed him or a student to ask his opinion of. And at least one of them could be relied upon to send him an expectant pride-filled look at all times, so much so that Harry suspected they had set up a rota for it.

'What are your views on the tournament, Harry?' Dumbledore asked, forcing him to put on his grown-up Chosen One boots and snap to attention.

The tournament would be in four stages. The inaugural obstacle course would trim the starting pack of forty champions to a leaner thirty-two. Those thirty-two would each duel once amongst each other, halving their number. The remaining sixteen would have one-to-one tactical battles, the victors going on to form the final eight.

'Varied, practical, achievable and no doubt entertaining yet educational for the other students to watch. What more could we ask for?'

They wordlessly turned to watch Crouch, who they knew was listening in as they escorted him back to his copter. He coughed abruptly beneath their compound gazes. 'Very well, very well. We shall see how this unravels. Currently, I am still very much unsure about the…unsavoury nature of this contest.'

'Really?' Harry asked coyly, 'Even after how we catered to your more, er, refined palette? We even cut the melee. I thought everyone loved a good melee.'

'Harry,' Dumbledore said, more sharply than usual.

Their send-off was subdued at best, consisting mainly of uttered surnames and curt nods.

'Are you quite satisfied, Harry?' Dumbledore asked. 'Asserted your opinions in a clear enough manner?'

The head professor didn't sound as angry as Harry had expected him too, just disappointed, which in many ways was a lot worse. Still, he made his case.

'You saw the way he looked at all of us, like we were infected with something. I was only being as, well, clear in my opinions as he was.'

'And whose matter more, Harry? Yours or his?'

Harry hesitated. 'You want me to say his.'

'If our two factions were to make an alliance, the Order would benefit far more than the Ministry. The Ministry commands the public's trust, the planet's defences, the courts of law. To them, the Order is just another riotous speck on the crust of their civilisation. A very vocal speck, perhaps, one they may wish to silence if they continue to find it so disagreeable.

'Do you understand the point that I am attempting to illustrate, Harry? We exist at their whim.'

'But you're important at the Ministry, respected.' Harry felt horribly insubordinate, arguing with the head professor like this, but Dumbledore had always spoken to him as an equal and Harry responded in kind.

'Which is why they have allowed this school to continue as it is for three years. However, a man can fall out of the establishment's favour with frightening speed. We have to be incredibly careful. If you find the man the Ministry sends to treat with us intolerable, keep that to yourself. If he finds _you_ intolerable, if you continue to give him the illusion that you are an impetuous, undisciplined youth – which we both very well know that you are not – then you endanger our cause. Is that clear?'

_Ease off_, Harry wanted to say_. So I got annoyed. That's what people do; that's what_ _everyone else gets to do. Shoot me a blank, sir._

'Heard, sir,' Harry said. 'I'm sorry. I'll do better.'

Sometimes, Harry wanted to meet the stupid bitch who'd decided that he would be the right person to wear the Chosen boots. Most of the time, he was glad she had receded into hiding and hoped she stayed there until the war was over.

…

Hermione gazed placidly at the Netboard as Professor Vector explained the basics of game theory to her Advanced Mathematics class. The optional class was populated equally by fourth year Ravens and Slytherins. And Ron, Hermione added curiously to herself as she peeped at the characteristically brash redhead to her left. He was looking unusually studious, scribbling away on his soltab. She supposed it had something to do with the intrinsic links between this branch of mathematics and any sort of strategy.

On her other side, Sue Li and Padma Patil were hunched over the first exercise they had copied from the board. Sue frowned at the matrix she had drawn and looked exasperatedly to her friends. 'I actually miss abstract algebra,' she confided with a rueful smile. Hermione and Padma snickered with her under their breaths.

'Forget algebra,' Padma said, 'I think we're all missing out here. We should've all told Flitwick we wanted to be in the aerial division. They've started drilling in the new flight sims already. I heard they're going to be able to practise in _real_ aircraft after Winter Leave.'

'Really?' Hermione asked. It took little tidbits like this to remind her what a world away this school was from her little hometown in the south. She loved it.

'So they'd be real pilots soon?' Sue asked. 'That won't go straight to their heads.'

The girls laughed again, even as Hermione solved her second problem and set about copying out the third. By the end of their lesson, she and Ron were two of the few to have completed all the problems, despite Hermione's aberrant chattering with the other Raven girls.

Despite her hard work, Professor Vector bid Hermione to stay behind.

'Ooh, what have you done?' Padma asked, quickly submitting her unfinished work to the professor's computer.

'Nothing out of character,' Hermione insisted.

Sue giggled. 'Do you want us to wait for you?'

Ron was lingering too, silently appealing for her decision with a casual shrug.

'No, it's fine, you should go and have dinner. I probably won't be long.' And she hoped she was right. She'd always had many worries about school, but never had they been about whether she was in trouble with a teacher or not.

When the classroom had emptied, Professor Vector summoned her with a reassuring smile, and Hermione felt herself relax. 'It seems that with each year I teach you, you dedicate a greater portion of the time to talking in class.'

Hermione flushed, 'I'm sorry, I–'

Professor Vector raised a hand, and Hermione was forced to abandon her self-defence. 'And yet, your work remains consistently outstanding. That mathematical paper on the planetary cycles of our solar system you submitted last week could easily be circulated on specialist Nethubs.' She regarded her blushing, beaming student fondly. 'Head Professor Dumbledore and I are quite in agreement about your talent. He has requested a meeting with you tonight at nine.'

'He wants to meet _me_?' While the man had been a key figure in her best friend's life for a decade now, Hermione hardly knew him herself.

'Yes.'

'What for?'

'Hopefully that will be covered in the meeting tonight, among other things.'

Hermione laughed half-heartedly at this wry comment before thanking her teacher and leaving the classroom.

Harry wasn't at dinner that night. Where on Five was he? Her friend had a remarkable talent for disappearing into the ether whenever people were looking for him. Of course, how could she forget? He'd had that first tournament meeting with Crouch today.

She quickly polished off dinner, soothed the concerned inquiries of her housemates when she rose early and headed for the fourth year common room, collecting some food for Harry on the way. She couldn't quite keep the grin off her face as she traversed corridors and mounted stairs, and she wondered if there would always be a part of that lonely girl she had once been lodged in her mind, in constant awe of how people genuinely seemed to care for her.

Her grin widened stupidly further when she saw Harry sprawled on a common room sofa, gazing intently at whatever he was creating with stylus and soltab.

''Mione,' Harry waved her over, 'you're out early.'

'I wasn't that hungry. What about you? You weren't at dinner at all.'

'Got caught up in this. By the time I remembered it was dinner, I figged it was a brainwaste.'

Hermione sighed and rummaged in her bag. 'You're lucky they introduced the whole packed meal venture recently. Even super soldiers need fuel, Harry.'

Harry snatched the container she threw him from the air. 'You're stellar, 'Mione.' He opened it. 'Couscous, that'll keep me out of Pomfrey's.'

As he set out to prove that food was in fact not a brainwaste, Hermione peered at the tablet he had been doodling on. 'What's this?'

Harry swallowed his mouthful, covered it with one hand and said: 'Secret competition plans. Hermione Jean Granger, do you solemnly swear to reveal these to absolutely no-one?'

'Yes,' she replied.

'Even your cat?'

'Even Crookshanks, who is safely at home with my parents, is prohibited like all other pets from this building, and never listens to anything I have to say on a good day anyway.'

Harry eyed her shrewdly for a while. 'That will do. _This_ is the first stage of the competition.'

Hermione settled next to him and accepted the soltab for inspection. It was a drawing of a rather elaborate structure in a contrastingly rudimentary style, teeming with Harry's angular handwriting. 'An obstacle course?'

'Yeah,' Harry said enthusiastically between mouthfuls. 'All the soldier gets is his sabre, his smarts, his guts and his gun. See that bit? That's where some sort of projectiles will rain on them like enemy fire, and there'll be moving targets to shoot, structures to climb. It's not completely finished yet though, and I bet Moody's working on a hellish course of his own, the sadistic bludger… Everything all right?'

Hermione hadn't noticed when her smile got stiff, and now she let it fall, rubbing her cheeks. 'It's nothing, Harry. Keep going.'

'No, I'm finished. Go on, what's wrong?' He gave her that obstinate look that told her he wouldn't hear anything but an honest answer.

'Head Professor Dumbledore wants to speak with me in his office.'

'Ok, what's wrong with that?'

'Everything! Harry, I know the magnitude of it has worn off because you meet him all the time, but for me it's different. What do I say, how do I act?'

'Just be yourself, Hermione. That's the person he wants to meet in the first place.'

'Yes, yes, but could you at least tell me if there are any ground rules I need to follow?'

'Always take a lemon drop, always.' When Hermione batted him impatiently on the shoulder, he returned it with insistent earnestness. 'I'm serious. Lemon drops are on a Merlinian sort of level for him.'

'What should I expect though?'

'Expect?'

'Well, how do your meetings with him typically go?'

Harry hummed pensively. 'I knock first, I suppose. He's a stickler for knocking, but he always seems to know it's me anyway. He invites me to sit down, guns straight for the kill on the lemon drop front, then we exchange filler talk a bit.' Harry stroked his imaginary beard and spoke in an uncanny parody of the man's mystic tone that made Hermione giggle. '"Ah, Harry, my boy. How is everything for you? How goes the training? How are young Mr Weasley and Ms Granger? Has anything unusual happened today?" He likes that one. "Anything unusual? Anything you can't explain?" He gets a real buzz out of anything bizarre. I tell him no and he looks a bit disappointed before recounting the strangest stories in the news to me.

'Then suddenly, he just turns it all off and becomes this timeless pillar of wisdom and we're talking about war and Voldemort and love and loss and cost. You might be a bit disconcerted at first, but you get used to him.' Harry smiled brightly, rewarding his lengthy analysis with another generous bite of food.

'Thanks, Harry. That was very helpful.' She sat forward. 'How was Crouch?'

Harry grunted vehemently as he chewed.

'I see,' said Hermione, making a note never to ask again. 'What do you think Dumbledore wants to see me about?'

Harry regarded her mock seriously. 'He's making you the new Chosen One. I'll probably file for retirement somewhere south, buy a ranch or a vineyard.'

'As if anyone else could take your mantle.'

Harry returned to stroking his illusory white beard. 'Quite the contrary, Ms Granger. Young Harry, well, the boy tries, but he is unfortunately lacking in intelligence, diplomacy and a general appreciation of haircare.'

'My hair's just as awful as yours,' Hermione protested.

'Really, that's the part you pick up on? No, "but you are intelligent and diplomatic, Harry"?'

'Well, that shouldn't need to be said, but if you insist on fishing for compliments, then I'll tell you that your impression of Dumbledore is horrifyingly accurate, positively supernatural.'

Students were leisurely gravitating in from dinner. Ron barrelled into the common room as they were laughing and looked between them with half-smiling expectancy. 'What's funny?'

The speed with which the grins fell from their faces was enough to disconcert him. In the ensuing silence, Harry inhaled a large portion of his couscous, and Hermione pointedly watched him for as long as was socially acceptable until she realised she was purposely being left to answer.

She went for the truth. 'Well, we were just talking about Dumbledore. He's summoned me to his office, you see.'

'Oh,' said Ron.

'It's probably nothing that important,' Hermione rushed.

'Be real, Hermione. This is you we're talking about. The Great Brain in the Phoenix Nest. He probably wants to make you the second Saviour of the school or something, Vice-Chosen One.'

Harry laughed appeasingly but stuffed his face with more couscous when Hermione turned to glare at him.

'You know that wouldn't happen, Ronald,' Hermione said carefully.

'Sure.'

'I'm jetting for the gym in a few,' Harry said. 'Want to come with?'

'Nah, I'll pass. Leave you shining stars to laugh about how wonderful everyone thinks you are. Shay's offered me a game of chess anyway.' And with that, he trudged off.

'What the hell?' asked Harry, once he was gone.

…

'Are you sure you even need a spotter?' Cedric asked, hovering over Harry as he smoothly bench-pressed a frightening weight for an adolescent boy. The prefect had conveniently "been around" when Harry had arrived in the gym and was eager to be his helpful, Badger self. 'What is this, your tenth rep?'

'I'd be stupid not to have one.' Harry said with a huff once he lowered the barbell. 'I have a limit too. I usually get Ron or Nev to. Lions love the gym.'

'Of course,' Cedric said, but didn't elaborate.

'All right, raise the weight.'

Cedric knelt beside one of the weighted discs and fiddled with its touchpad. Somewhere within both weights, a portion of liquid chemical became solid and the heaviness increased. 'That ok?'

Harry smiled wryly. 'Yes, Cedric. No need to fret like somebody's mum.'

'If something happens to you on my watch, I'd be more like somebody's punching bag.'

Harry laughed in surprise, an already-familiar response when it came to Cedric.

'Ok, three, two, one, lift.'

Harry struggled a bit with the new weight before lifting it cleanly.

'I'm impressed,' said Cedric.

'You're vocal about it.'

'Sorry, I'll shut up.'

Cedric made a show of watching Harry's progress, poised to act in case the weight got too much for him. He waited for what he thought was a reasonable time before he spoke again. 'So, how are things?'

'You are bloody awful at this,' Harry grunted.

'I mean, how's your mystery girl?'

The barbell juddered in Harry's hands, and Cedric hurriedly grabbed hold of it, helping the younger boy to ease it back onto the rack. 'Merlin, Cedric. Time? Place?'

'That was stupid; I'll be the first to admit it. You could tell me all about her after then?'

Harry actually sat up at this. 'You are relentless.'

'Thank you.'

'That wasn't a compliment.'

'For a Badger it was. We're meant to be hard-working and resilient.'

Harry tried, unsuccessfully, to maintain the pace of his usual gym regime, but Cedric's insistence made it nigh impossible.

'You're annoying as hell,' Harry said, taking an angry swig of water as they sat side by side on a bench.

'There's no other way to get expo out of you.'

'What, by interrupting my training regime?'

'Because Merlin forbid your biceps lose even a byte of definition.'

'You know it's not about that.'

'Don't worry,' Cedric waved Harry's protests aside, 'I wasn't being serious. I know everything you do, you do for the rest of us. You just looked a bit fused out these recent days. I thought you could do with a bit of a reprieve.'

'Weren't you the one advocating hard work and resilience not that long ago?'

'Not to the detriment of yourself,' Cedric said, nodding smartly. 'You've got to make room for other things. When's the last time you flew your Firebolt? When's the last time you read a book that wasn't a long-dead general's journal, watched a moviestream that wasn't a war doc? When was the last time you talked to mystery girl?'

Harry's brow furrowed, thinking of the hoverboard gathering dust beneath his bed. _Too long_. He didn't want to admit that to this sunny, well-adjusted boy he hardly knew. 'It always comes back to the girl, doesn't it?' he diverted.

'The headprof gave me a mission. I take it very seriously. Help me here. _Tell _me you've talked to her.'

'And what in Five would I say?'

'How about "hello"? "How are you"? "What's this weather like, eh?" It's not astrophysics! It's not all the crazy scrap you can do without blinking an eye.'

'You mean…just go up to her? I could do that?'

Cedric held his palms skywards, invoking Merlin, Morgana and all the forgotten gods of awkward teenage romance, before dragging Harry to his feet. 'Of course. How else do you meet people? Ok, we'll practise.'

'Now?'

'Now. I'm the girl, and I'm so pretty…with my long, flowing hair?'

'Not telling.'

'Short, er, flappy hair?'

'I can see what you're doing.'

'Damn. Not even one ID clue?' He batted his eyelashes in such a ridiculous manner that Harry had to laugh. He reluctantly liked the Badger for that, for putting him at ease.

'Fine, just walk up, shoot me a charming grin and say hello.'

Harry saw an immediate problem with that. 'I don't do charming grins.'

'Sure you do,' Cedric replied amiably.

'The last time I smiled at her I spilled juice all down my front.'

Cedric winced. 'That's not completely irredeemable.'

'Whenever I see her, I swear I lose control of everything I need to function. I'm brainjacked. I'm _vulnerable_,' he realised, 'weak. I can't talk to her; I can't be cool around her; I can't even smile at her. There we go. Bloody work with that, Major Sunshine.'

'I will,' Cedric declared. 'Smile.'

Making a big show of grumbling, Harry tried a smile.

'No. Not good. Stop apologising for yourself.'

'I didn't say anything.'

'You're apologising with your face. Right now that sheepish grin is saying "Hi, I'm Harry, and I'm not really sure what I'm doing here. Sorry you got stuck talking with me. I know you have better things to do." What your debonair grin should be saying is, "Hey, I'm Harry freakin' Potter, the only man standing between you and imminent slaughter. Worship me."'

Harry stared at him. 'Right.'

'Sorry, I'm overtalking again, aren't I? I've been warned about that. It might surprise you, but before this whole military school business started, I wanted to go into politics.'

Harry wasn't surprised.

'Here, watch me do it.' Cedric went on to flash Harry the smile of a winning ministerial candidate. 'The hack is thinking up good memories, memories where you've felt good about being you. You've got those right, among all the crippling humility that borders on self-flagellation?'

'Ha,' said Harry before he got to thinking. When had he ever liked himself? Not because he'd set a new personal best or mastered an offensive technique or did anything that shaped him as a weapon instead of a man. But because he'd reached out and touched people's hearts, made them see worth beyond a title and a face.

He thought of Sirius saying that he would always love his godson, of Ron pronouncing them best friends, of Neville swearing loyalty to him, of all the Order students slowly relaxing around him and treating him like one of them, of the first time Hermione had every hugged him. Then he beamed.

'There we go! You should see yourself with a smile. Now I'm whole het, but you're hot.' Cedric slapped the stammering Chosen One heartily on the back. 'I should go and see the Beard right now and call this mission a success.'

'Ease up there,' Harry murmured. 'I still haven't even talked to her yet.'

'That's why we're practising now. Come _on_, com. I'm her, you're you, go.'

By the time the ordeal was over, it had ceased to be an ordeal. Cedric wasn't so bad, that was to say, he was rather difficult to dislike. Maybe acting out improbable scenarios and generally joking about was even fun. In the end, even if it didn't work out with Cho, Harry liked to think he had gained a friend.

…

There was a bird in Dumbledore's office. Hermione was unsure as to why this detail seemed the most important to her, but she supposed that it was easier to stare at the phoenix and admire its fiery plumage than to focus on the head professor himself.

The old man cleared his throat. 'Lemon drop?'

'Thank you, sir.' Hermione took one from the proffered jar.

'How are you enjoying your classes?' he asked warmly.

'Very well, sir,' Hermione said.

'Truly?'

Hermione paused, masking her sudden disquiet, analysing his speech, his tone, his expression. 'Yes, sir,' she replied slowly.

'I've spoken to your teachers. They are all in accordance. You are a remarkable student: diligent, quick, respectful,' (Hermione hid a wince as she remembered Professor Vector's earlier lesson), 'but you are not achieving your full potential.'

'I'll try harder, sir, I promise,'

'No-one holds you accountable, Ms Granger. The content of the lessons simply restricts you at every turn. You are not being challenged.'

'Hand-to-hand challenges me, and shooting, and military science. Professor Slughorn says I overthink, that the enemy would decimate my army while I was still deliberating my first move.'

Dumbledore chuckled at this. 'Perhaps you are being challenged, but not in the right ways. I will perfectly honest with you, Ms Granger. As a field soldier, you are capable, passable, but it is the strength of your mind that I wish to build upon. That is why I have scheduled you a weekly specialist lesson starting as of tomorrow after breakfast.'

'A weekend?' Though that time was hardly a respite for the students in the Phoenix Nest.

'Your tutor is a busy man.'

'How many others will be in this class?'

'No others.'

'Just me?'

Dumbledore nodded. 'I believe that you are the only one who would excel in such a lesson, and it is of extreme importance that you do excel.'

_Why?_ she wanted to ask. _Who?_ _What? _But she remained silent, obedient, as the headteacher dismissed her genially yet finally.

'Ms Granger, one more thing to note. It would be…prudent if word of this was restricted to you, me and your teacher. Is that understood?'

Hermione only hesitated for a moment. 'Heard, sir.'

She got out her soltab from her pocket and smiled when she saw a few messages from Harry bouncing around the screen.

**How was everything with dear old Beard? **

**Has he finally realised what a superior Chosen One you'd make?**

**In all seriousness, what did he say?**

**On a one-to-ten scale, how would you rate your first lemon drop experience?**

**Sorry, Cedric stole my soltab for that last one. I swear Badgers don't know the meaning of personal space. **

Hermione smiled fondly and composed a response in her head. She seriously considered telling Harry all that had happened, that Dumbledore was seemingly making a project of her too. After all, he had not given her a reason for the secrecy, and the little information she did know seemed innocent enough. She began to type.

**Nothing much. Just called me in to congratulate me on my school performance. **

**Glad to see you're making new friends. Play nicely now. **

If there was one element to being a field soldier she was good at, it was following orders. While she felt some guilt about not confiding in her best friend, she reminded herself that as the Chosen One, Harry probably had many secrets of his own.

…

'You may enter.'

Hermione hesitantly nudged open the door and peeked inside, her muscles tensed for action as she scanned the interior of the room. If Hermione hadn't read _Hogwarts Castle: A History_ from cover to cover, she would suspect the eponymous building of having the magical ability to spawn new rooms when no-one was looking too closely at the floor plan. In all her three years here, she had never seen this particular workspace before, a laboratory with desk-lined walls and a frankly excessive amount of machinery that nevertheless filled Hermione with intellectual thrill.

Her mysterious instructor – a withered old man who looked to have witnessed the construction of this very castle – stood in the centre of it all, eyeing her with owlish curiosity. Hermione stood to attention beneath his scrutiny, waiting for him to speak.

'So, you're the best this school has to offer?' he asked.

'So the head professor argues, sir,' Hermione said.

'Enough with all that "sir" nonsense and that soul-sapping military precision,' the man groused with an impatient wave of his hand. 'I was informed that I would be training a prodigious talent, not a performing gibbon.'

Hermione immediately relaxed her posture. The man walked towards her, swinging his cane as if it was only there for showmanship. 'How's your solar chemistry?'

The question startled her. 'Well, er, I think I'm doing all right. My grades–'

'Now is the worst time to pretend modesty. If you want to learn, then show me what I need to teach you.'

'I'm good,' Hermione said. 'One of the best.'

'And your standard chemistry?'

'Good.'

'You understand your physics?'

'Yes.'

'Thermodynamics?'

Hermione nodded.

'Quantum mechanics?'

She nodded again.

'What about astrophysics?'

Hermione shifted uncomfortably. 'You know, most of these aren't covered in the school curriculum.'

'And yet you are familiar with all of this?'

'Yes.'

'We shall see what your definition of "familiar" equates to in comparison to mine,' said the man. He pointed his cane at her with a wry smile. 'I know what you think? Who is this old man coming in and throwing doubts on my capabilities? I am Nicolas Flamel. Ah, recognition. Now she stands to attention. Great minds only listen to what others have to contribute if they deem it a worthy offering. No need to flush and stammer, child. I know it is true. You have read about me in scholarly articles, encountered list upon tedious list of my past achievements, so now you pay attention to what I have to say. I can see that highly advertised brain of yours whirring away, preparing to transliterate everything I have to say, take it apart, analyse, evaluate et cetera, et cetera.

'Well, I have some choice words for you to note down. Nitwit, oddment, blubber, tweak.'

When Hermione did nothing but stare at him blankly, he continued undaunted. 'Marvellous, isn't it? One of Albus's, I believe.'

'Sir,' Hermione said after a while more of silence, 'what exactly is the purpose of this lesson? Professor Dumbledore said that it would be extremely important.'

'Did he?' asked Flamel with a gruff chuckle. He circled the worktable in the centre of the room – an uncluttered island among all the technical paraphernalia – numerous times before stopping to place a small, grey object on its surface. He gestured her forward to view it. Sitting there by his hand was a pebble, smoothed to perfection but otherwise completely unremarkable.

'Your first task,' said Flamel, 'is to move that stone from here to there,' he indicated the section of counter that lined the furthest wall from them.

Hermione looked at him, sensing a trick of some kind.

'Do not overthink,' he said.

She let her hand hover above the pebble, watching him all the while. When he did nothing, she closed her fingers around it, walked stiffly to the other side of the room and set it down.

'Well done,' Flamel applauded, 'now set it back where it was.'

Hermione did so.

'The art of invention is finding the simplest way to accomplish a goal. Most forget that in their pursuit of superficial cleverness. Now, do the same thing, but this time do not touch the stone with any part of your body. Do not use any mundane tools to lift, scoop or otherwise affect the stone in any way.'

'Then what are you suggesting, sir, that I magically teleport it?' She strove to keep the sarcasm at bay.

'I wouldn't say magically, but yes, some form of teleportation would be ideal.'

'That's impossible, sir.'

'Make it possible. You have all the resources in this room and all the time that you need. And if you need more of either, simply ask.'

'Why?' Hermione asked. 'You just told me that invention is about taking the simplest route towards a goal. Why ask me to find a way to teleport the stone when I can pick it up and move it?'

'Because it's not about the stone. Forget about the stone. It could just as easily be an apple or a ring or a book or a goblet. Just get it from here to there. That is what it's really about.'

'And if I fail like the many generations of scientists before me have?'

'We need you. Your friend, Harry Potter, needs you. The world needs you to do things like this. You may fail, but only as long as you go on to succeed. Start whenever you're ready.'

He retreated to the side-lines and sat on a stool, calmly observing her. Not knowing what else to do, Hermione turned and stared at the untouchable stone, wondering what on Five she'd done to become crucial to the world.

* * *

**AN: **Another delay. Sorry for that. Hopefully this chapter can somewhat atone. My current uni course is smushing all of the creative spirit from me, but I think I'm fighting back!

Next Chapter: The tournament begins.


	15. Chapter 15

**Warning: Angsty champions  
**

* * *

Several weeks and archived drafts later, the obstacle course was ready. It was a compromising merger of the most ambitious obstacles in Harry's designs and the least deadly in Moody's. Altogether, Harry was quite proud of it. The roof and walls that had been erected around the construction site were still up and would remain so until the day of the competition, so Harry and Moody could inspect it in complete privacy, shielded from the gossiping horde of students that had taken to gathering outside it and speculating.

'Go on then,' Moody said. 'Give it a try.'

'Thought you'd never ask,' replied Harry with a terse grin.

He plunged unflinchingly into the first obstacle, a pit of mud approximately fifty metres in length and ten in width and dotted with the trashed artefacts of a previous, non-existent battle. Sensing his entry, the course flashed overhead spotlights over the expanse of mud, searching for him. Harry knew that if any of the participants were discovered by a searchlight, and remained within its radius for more than three seconds, it would flash red and generate an infraction. One infraction would mean very little to a competitor if they completed the race first, but a steady build-up of penalties could quickly affect the standings. After all, it was no use being the fastest if you were technically killed ten times over.

Harry was nimble despite the viscosity of the mud, slipping away from the spotlights' glare, hiding beneath the wing of a dismembered aircraft or the shell of a tanker or completely submerging himself if he had to. On the other side, he pulled himself out swiftly, moving efficiently as if he wasn't caked in sludge.

The next area warranted Harry's rifle. Shots were fired from his right, chipping the metal vats strategically placed to give minimal cover with awful clangs. He dive-rolled behind the first barrel and peeked out at the source of the gunfire. There were no gunmen to be seen, just dancing camouflaged targets that seemed to dematerialise as soon as Harry spotted them. The champions would have to shoot five targets before they could clear the obstacle. If they didn't, it would add to their penalty time. The bullets themselves were compacted paint pellets, which would dye the competitor red wherever they were hit and incur yet more infractions. So much room for error, and yet Harry navigated his way across the firing zone and shot all the targets in sight without a hitch.

The third stage was a rocky landscape with some ridges that rose to waist – or even chest – height. Harry pitied the shorter competitors as he shouldered his rifle and climbed and vaulted his way to the other side, getting dustier as if he went.

By the time he reached the fourth stage, the champions would be feeling unpleasantly grotty, slathered in freezing mud, paint and dust. Harry supposed that a battlefield was the most likely place to merit a bubble bath and yet the least likely place to provide one.

Seeded into the seemingly innocuous stretch of grass were mines. Not the explosive kind – Harry had argued relentlessly with Moody to ensure – but a modified type that sprayed coloured steam and, yes, incited yet another infraction. Here, Harry suspected the Lions would fare the worst, charging forward before properly evaluating the stage as something other than a nice break. The competitors would have to be cautious as Harry was now, keeping low to the ground and spreading his weight on hands and knees. He used his sabre to test the area before him, jabbing at an angle as mines were triggered by pressure from above. He remained calm throughout, altering his direction accordingly whenever he found a mine. Once he was past the grass and back onto rock, he began to run again.

He threw himself at the rock wall, bringing himself up hand over hand like a monkey. Halfway up the sheer rock face was a ledge from which he took the grappling wire and wrangled himself a secure rope to the top. The only thing to do after that was skid down the resulting steep slope without tumbling over and alight at the finish line.

Dear Merlin he needed a shower.

'Works out all right,' Moody ceded, walking up to him. Since paths lined either side of the obstacle course, the man had prowled alongside Harry as he progressed.

Harry gathered a few fist-sized rocks from the scree slope and walked down the side of the course to the minefield. Under Moody's clinical stare, Harry began to toss the rocks at it until a mine was activated and flared up in a burst of red smoke. The two of them could feel the force of it even from where they were standing.

'I'm still not sure about this obstacle.'

'I made the concessions for you, and the tournament council approved it.'

'If our troops were to come across a known minefield, standard procedure would be to leave the way we came and find another route.'

'Your point is?'

'Could be unnecessarily dangerous.'

'And war isn't?'

'I see your point, sir, but we've got to remember that they're still kids.'

'"They" and not "we"?'

'I'm not a kid, sir. You made sure of that.'

Moody grunted. 'At least I tried. Listen, _kid_. Until you've gone out into the world, fought some real battles, known the sight, the smell, the _feel_ of drawing your enemy's lifeblood, you're just as much a kid as the rest of them. A well-trained kid – I did damn well make sure of that – but a hatcher if I ever saw one. Stack up some kills, then you can talk about it.'

'Right away, sir, because when I grow up, I want to be just like you.'

With his metal leg, Moody kicked Harry in the stomach. Harry fell to his knees, but refrained from hugging himself until the ache subsided.

'I may not have drawn blood, but I know how to take pain. You made sure of that too. Maybe I'm not like you, but I feel older than them. I feel responsible for them, and I say the minefield is too much.'

'Too late, Potter, it's built now. Now get up and do something useful before I boot you again.'

Harry got to his feet and turned to leave. 'Please, sir, that threat lost its fear factor by the time I was ten.'

'I said, off you go, Potter,' Moody barked. 'Go and clean the muck off you.'

'Heard, sir, loud and often.' Harry saluted smartly as usual, but for once his face betrayed the hatred he had for his first brutal taskmaster. It was just for a moment, but Moody didn't need a hyper-efficient, artificial eye to see it. Harry jogged back to the castle, missing the heavy sigh that followed him.

…

In the time since Hermione had first begun her specialist lessons, she had come to a few conclusions. Firstly, Flamel's eminent mind was as brilliant as her reading had led her to believe, but it was also in heavy decline. The knowledge he had to give her seemed boundless, yet she was quicker than him, nimbly navigating through the new information he imparted like a sure-footed acrobat. Secondly, the real objective of this project was not to transport a pebble from one side of a medium-sized room to another, but to teleport objects to the other side of the planet, maybe even further, with ease and precision. Thirdly, this wasn't an exercise. It wasn't just another class assignment to complete and be filed away and called upon only as a marker of her progress.

This was big. This was human advancement in motion. This was something little girls like her would read about in textbooks twenty years from now. If she could only get it right.

She had multiple screens up around her work desk, each displaying a different documentation of preceding research into the elusive subject. They had become a fixture of Hermione's lessons since the beginning. Newer were the monitors that put her into contact with other scientists working on the problem: solemn, sceptical men and women who treated whatever she had to say like hassled mothers receiving yet another mud pie from their child.

They were Unspeakables, Hermione was certain, the most elite minds drafted into the Ministry to work on clandestine, demanding projects. Before the Order School, Hermione had seriously considered aiming for this mysterious faction of the government, but now she was thankful for this new path. She didn't know if she would be able to tolerate the rampaging egos they seemed to acquire along with the job.

Even after all these weeks, the conversation hadn't passed beyond the obvious discussion of wormholes.

'There is simply no other way, Ms Granger,' Bode, the most senior Unspeakable there, said. 'After all the speculative theory posed hundreds of years ago, we are now in the position to prove or disprove it.'

'In the position, yes,' Hermione had been too deferential to really speak to them at first, but that had soon changed, 'to create multiple failed, and in many cases hazardous, wormholes that collapse long before their complete formation. You're employing the matter before you've consolidated the theory.'

'Mr Flamel, remind me. Where in Five did you find this charming girl?'

'She makes a fair point, Bode,' said Professor Flamel. 'Just because we now have the means to even think about bringing wormholes into being, it doesn't mean we've brought the theory up to a similar level.'

Hermione drew confidence from the man who was her teacher, colleague, largest critic and, this time, her supporter. 'You're rushing, playing "trial and error" with the government's money because you so desperately want something tangible to present.'

'You are young,' Bode said patiently, 'and know very little of the world. This has been my livelihood for many decades, and I have played instrumental parts in the previous research that you have no doubt skimmed over days before you embarked on this project.'

'You can question my experience,' Hermione acknowledged, 'that's fair, but please do not question my knowledge. I don't speak without being a hundred per cent certain that what I'm saying has a basis in truth. I like to think I was put on this task because I know what I'm talking about.'

'Do you, Ms Granger, when everything you say is contradicted by esteemed field experts?' asked a different Unspeakable with far less patience.

Pressing her lips into a rigid line, Hermione turned to the nearest board and began to write out the equations they were currently basing their ill-formed realisations of wormholes on. She then went on to point out the flaws and gaps in each, stating how exactly they contributed to the experiment failures.

'Then what do you suggest we do instead?' Bode ground out.

'Even if wormholes did become a reality, they're superfluous. All that just to transport an object from place to place? Professor Flamel told me that invention was about finding the simplest solution to a problem.

'How would we contain the wormhole, stop it from absorbing everything in its path? How would we control its destination? And it works in the field of spacetime, when we only want to transport through space. There are too many variables, too many what ifs. I understand now why Professor Flamel initially presented this problem as a pebble I needed to move from one side of the room to the other. It's because the solution needs to tackle the smallest of tasks as well as the largest to be truly successful.'

Professor Flamel was grinning at her in pride, but Bode was far from satisfied with this answer.

'You haven't answered my question, Ms Granger.'

'There has to be another way. I think we've become fixated on wormholes. If we could find a way to just _move_ matter, make it disappear from one place and appear in another without–'

The Unspeakables were moaning. 'Not this again.'

'Fanciful talk.'

'We've been through this, Ms Granger,' Professor Flamel said. 'What you're discussing is indeed ludicrous. Unless you have the workings to prove otherwise?'

'No,' Hermione murmured. And not through lack of trying.

'It seems that we are at an impasse,' said Professor Flamel. 'Until then, Ms Granger, you will continue to work well with the group. Am I clear?'

_Let's see your contribution then! If we're all so incorrect, why don't you live up to your name and show us all your fantastic third option?_ She regretted those raging thoughts as soon as they had appeared. This was her teacher, a childhood hero, someone who merited her complete reverence. 'Yes, Professor,' she said.

Hermione balled up her frustration and thrust it in her bag along with her tools. Why did they need her? They had Nicolas Flamel and countless scientific boffins working on the technology full-time and none of them seemed to know what a mousy, underqualified military schoolgirl had to do with anything. They enlisted her help and went on to doubt her the whole time. Her intellect had never been treated with more disdain. No, that was not the real source of her consternation. It was the problem itself. Once she set her heart on it, it was impossible to think of anything else and she knew it would burn in her brain until she solved it. She didn't know who would use it, what it would be used for, all she knew is that she needed to be the one to bring it to fruition.

She paced around the grounds despite the chill in the air. There were students about, trained as they were to bear through all weathers, but less than the usual. Hermione used the quietness to think, trudging further and further away until the castle was a shadow on the horizon. She came up against the barbed, iron gate that ringed the whole compound, a cautionary measure that thankfully hadn't seen much use yet. From there, she walked along its length until she reached the fringe of the Forbidden Forest. She smiled at the mixed memories it gave her, of new fear and new friends.

Then she heard giggling and looked up to see a couple emerge from the treeline, laughing and holding onto each other as if they couldn't stand alone. Hermione's heart beat faster. It was Harry and Cho. They'd been getting commy over the past few weeks. Harry had been shy about it, only surrendering details when Ron and the twins pressed him.

He wasn't shy now. He was more confident than Hermione had ever seen him outside a combat situation, grinning crookedly as he spun Cho around and backed her into a tree. She laughed the whole while, muttering his name fondly before melting into his assertive kisses. They looked so picturesque. Two tall, dark-haired, beautiful people gracefully entwining. A sudden pang drew a startled gasp from Hermione, and she pressed herself back against the fence so she wouldn't be heard or seen. And she didn't want to see them either. She didn't want to see the adoring way he smiled at her, the way his hands slid to her thighs and how she let them stay there.

'We should go back,' Harry finally murmured, 'before people notice we're both gone..._again_.'

Cho giggled frothily, but from the way Harry laughed with her, Hermione would have thought she'd come back with a hilarious retort. 'Yeah, we'd better go.'

Their relationship was a secret, in case Cho's place in the tournament was jeopardised. As they walked off, Harry slid an arm around Cho's shoulders and rubbed them until she was warm. The girl was wearing Harry's phoenix blazer over her own, Hermione noticed blandly.

_What's wrong with you, Hermione?_ she asked herself as she felt her eyes begin to sting. _You're being completely irrational. He's your best friend, and you knew this was happening. You should be happy. _She squeezed her eyes tightly shut until the annoying prickle faded.

Another rustle from the forest distracted her, and curiosity gave way to disbelief when Luna Lovegood sauntered out of the woods. 'Well that was interesting indeed,' she said mildly.

'Luna, what were you doing in there?' was the only thing Hermione could ask.

The younger Raven smiled as if she hadn't heard the question, seemingly absorbed in admiring the Hogwarts grounds. Hermione didn't like her questions to go unanswered, so she found another point of interest to seize upon.

'Why aren't you wearing any shoes?'

'The students in my year have a game we all like to play. They hide someone's things and that someone has to look for them.'

'How cruel.'

'It's all a bit of fun,' Luna reassured her.

'Snakes?'

'Oh, all sorts. Mostly Ravens and Lions, actually.'

Feeling uncomfortable, Hermione pressed in a different direction. 'So, were you looking for your things in the forest?'

'No,' said Luna simply.

'Then why were you there? It's a restricted area, you know. They have all sorts of frightening creatures in there. I should know.'

'They leave me alone. You could say that I was one of them in a way,' Luna replied in an airy voice that obscured whether she was joking or not.

'What do you mean?'

With startling speed, Luna came to squat beside Hermione, fixing her with extra-terrestrial grey eyes. Her mussed platinum hair and flushed cheeks didn't make her a frightening creature necessarily, but neither did they determine her as wholly sane.

'I'm not meant to tell. I promised.'

'You can trust me,' Hermione breathed softly.

'Why? This is the longest you've ever talked to me, which is more than most I suppose,' she conceded good-naturedly enough.

Hermione cringed. After all, for most of her life, she'd been an outcast too. She tried to think of who she'd seen engage Luna in a genuine, respectful conversation. Harry, once or twice, but he talked with everyone. And Ginny: the youngest Weasley appeared to be her only friend.

Luna intercepted her thoughts. 'I go when I'm trying to avoid the Nargles.'

To come across an unfamiliar concept was becoming more and more alien to Hermione as she matured, but this one stumped her. 'Nargles?'

'Yes, you're lucky you haven't heard of them. They aren't pleasant. They keep trying to talk to me, and they make it really hard for me to get rid of them, not to mention how disruptive they are. So I come here until they go away.'

'You have…voices in your head…and you call them Nargles?' Perhaps Hermione's initial impression on the girl's state of mind had been correct after all.

'Yes. I knew I could tell you,' Luna said with a rueful grin. 'You're so rational and factual, it wouldn't make a difference no matter what said.' She stood, and the sun caught the glint of something in Luna's trouser pocket. It looked like the plunger of a syringe.

'What sort of things do the Nargles say?' Hermione asked in a rush.

'It used to be quite nice. Sometimes it would be funny or useful or interesting, but now it's always sad.' A haunted glaze stole over her grey eyes for a moment before they regained their famed serenity. But this time, Hermione wondered how genuine it was. 'Always so painful. So I hide away and take my dose until they stop.' She pressed down on the syringe until it completely disappeared inside her pocket.

For some bizarre reason, Hermione felt like crying even more than before. 'Should we jet for the castle?'

Luna nodded. 'We should.'

…

Harry waylaid her in the first-floor hallway, grinning from ear-to-ear.

'You look happy,' Hermione observed.

He laughed at the uncharacteristic inanity of her comment before grabbing hold of her and waltzing her down the corridor. Helplessly, Hermione found herself smiling and chuckling along with him. It was rare to see Harry so open, so buoyant, that all she could do was treasure it.

'Sometimes you realise that the world isn't as bad as you're determined to make it,' Harry replied. 'I mean, sure at some point I'll have to battle a dosed extremist leader with a murderous agenda against me, and the training's not always a soothing process, but as long as I've got you and Ron and Nev, I think I can make it.'

'And Cho,' Hermione added before she could stop herself.

They stopped turning, and Harry's grin somehow managed to stretch even wider. Merlin, he was handsome. 'I've never felt so easy in my own skin. There's something about being with her that makes you feel worthwhile. I can't believe she likes _me._ Do you think the place would implode if I asked her to the Winter Dance? M'god, 'Mione, look at me babbling on like a pre-pubescent, Muggle fanboy. You must think I'm injected or unreal or something.'

'No,' Hermione said with a wistful smile as Harry slung an arm around her. 'Just happy, more comfortable with yourself.'

'Yeah.'

A group of girls waved at Harry, but instead of looking alarmed or bemused, he shot back a kind smile that made them blush and titter. When he saw Hermione's disbelieving expression, Harry smiled some more. 'Rude, I wasn't that bad before but…it's not so scary, isn't it? In the end?'

Hermione looked up into Harry's deep green eyes. They had their own brand of affection when they looked at her, but Hermione didn't know if it was the kind she wanted anymore. 'No,' she said, 'no it's not.'

…

On the day of the tournament, Harry was charged with trawling the breakfast tables for the champions and instilling some hope and motivation into their anxious souls. Harry, Ron and Neville had a name for these types of tasks: "that leader stuff" they called it.

Harry made the decision to start from the far right and sweep across the dining hall, meaning that the Lions' Table was the first on his hit list. It was easily to locate Ron, especially as his face was currently as fiery red as his hair, a spectacular feat. Neville sat beside him, staring blankly at his rapidly cooling bacon.

'You two, look alive,' Harry said, coming up behind them and slapping them on the back.

Once the boys had finished jumping out of their skins and cursing Harry's stealthy approach, they actually looked pleased to see him, even if it was only so they could unload their fears and regrets on him.

'Why did you let me sign up for this, Harry?' Ron demanded. 'I'm gonna nosedive out there, in front of the whole bloody school! Bloody hell!'

'Calm,' Harry said, 'look you're boiling up Neville too. Ron, listen to me. You're going to do great. You really have a shot. I'm not just saying that because we're first coms. You can go far. And you Nev, come on, you've been training for nearly as long as me. Get some pride in you, both of you. You homs are gonna be all right.'

Ron nodded, his face paling to an acceptable shade, that is until Harry made to leave.

'W-where are you going?'

'I have to go on and say something like that to the thirty-eight other competitors,' Harry admitted.

'So you were lying then? Those words were just meaningless…?'

'Mollification,' Neville suggested.

'Yeah, that?'

'It wasn't meaningless. I did mean it. I do think you can win, just as I think any of you forty can win.' Harry quietly applauded this sudden bout of diplomacy. 'Will you homs be ok if I leave you unsupervised?'

'We're nervy not suicidal!' Ron said in an edgy tone that proved nothing of the kind.

'Right, I'll keep that in mind. See you in a bit.'

Harry made his way down the table, pacifying the fretful and enduring the boastful all whilst avoiding Colin Creevey, who insisted on taking photographs of Harry's charitable deeds.

'Potter.'

Harry turned and smiled politely at an approaching fifth year. He was a beast of a boy, all towering height and thick forearms. _Ron has to go up against people like this?_ 'McLaggen. How are you feeling?'

'Pretty confident,' answered Cormac McLaggen with what he must have thought was a winning smile. 'Half the competition is panty-wetting spits. The first cupla stages at least will be a sim game.'

'Each champion was selected for their promising skill,' Harry said evenly.

'Sure,' McLaggen said. 'So how come you're not competing, Potter? It'd be interesting facing off against you.'

'Because I helped design the whole tournament. It would be a bit unfair, wouldn't it?'

'I fig you're scared to go up against us. It'd be pretty shameful if one of us little Phoenix hatchers beat you after they set you up as better.'

'I really don't think that would happen,' Harry said flatly. He'd been trained to find the exit points whenever he walked into an unfamiliar room. Now, he did the same for this conversation.

'You never know. So, what's this first stage then?'

Harry had to give him points for boldness. 'You'll see in half an hour, like everyone else. Is that all, McLaggen? Good. Be lucky,' he added insincerely.

There was a clump of students from assorted houses barricading the entrance to the Lion-Badger aisle. Harry wasn't surprised to see a pair of identical, ginger heads in the centre of it all.

'A galleon on Longbottom,' a Raven was shouting at them.

'Where's your house pride?' asked her housemate, 'Five on Belby.'

'_Belby_?' hooted a Lion. 'My money's on Johnson.'

'Mine too,' Fred replied happily.

George punched him in the shoulder. 'You voider, what about our brother? Remember him, skinny, freckly, annoying little spit?'

Harry had to intervene. 'Fred, George, is this what I think it is?'

They beamed when they saw him.

'There he is, hom of the day. Who've you got your galleon on to win? Everyone listen up. We've got the Potter verdict coming up. Quick way to easy galleons.'

'You can't have a _betting ring_,' Harry hissed.

'Says who?'

'I don't know, human decency?'

'Hugh Mann-Decency? Never heard of him,' quipped Fred

'No-one's getting hurt here,' added George.

'They're fused as it is without people betting on their chances.'

'It's not telling them anything they don't know already. Look who's leading, Neville Order-Baby Longbottom and Diggory the Golden Badger. Just saying what everyone knows.'

A tiny shrimp of a boy that Harry didn't know, first year he concluded, still too young to be trusted with digital money, wriggled to the front with a pile of silver tokens heaped in his hands. 'Twenty two sickles and a knut on McLaggen.'

'_What?_ McLaggen?' Harry asked incredulously. 'Ok, this needs to stop right now. Really, McLaggen.'

'Aren't you meant to be impartial?' Fred asked.

'Weren't you just asking me to pick a favourite?' retorted Harry.

'Got me there.'

'Where's a prefect when you finally need one?' Harry murmured. 'Cedric! Cedric, help!'

Cedric, who had been laughing with a group of Badgers that were either his friends or his acolytes (Harry suspected a bit of both), found him over the sea of heads. 'All right, com?'

'Are you getting a little bludgering feeling? Like you're forgetting something? A little something called Prefect Duty?'

Cedric's grey eyes glinted with mirth. 'Sorry, kind of distracted this morning. I'm sure you understand.' He walked right into the centre of the hubbub and clapped his hands loudly. 'All right, break it up. Plenty time for that…ooh, are those my odds? How am I doing? Stellar, eh, look at that, Harry. I'm a favourite.'

Harry exhaled sharply through a strained grimace. 'Sorry everyone, the betting ring's closed now. Back to your tables.'

Fred laughed as if Harry were joking. 'Come on, Harry.'

'I'm serious. It's insensitive and unfair, and I don't want to see it here.'

There was a bunch of bitter muttering, but what Harry found worse were the stung looks the twins wore as they packed up their slapdash betting station.

At that point, Harry remembered something Kingsley had once told him. 'To always be their leader, you cannot always be their friends.'

'Well I was useless,' Cedric said in the way of a sheepish apology.

'Yep,' Harry easily agreed, flicking him on the forehead.

'Ow!'

'If _that _hurt, you might as well give up on the tournament now,' Harry remarked.

The rest of the Badger Champions weren't looking as jaunty as Cedric, holding themselves as if that could prevent their anxiety from overspilling, but they brightened when Harry or Cedric walked up to them and spoke kind words of reassurance. Harry was once again taken aback by how loved Cedric was by his house and how instinctual his leadership over the other Badgers seemed.

The Raven champions were dealing with the anticipation by poring frantically over their soltabs, sifting through notes or articles in hope that they would read a secret to victory between the lines. Harry made a point of speaking to Cho for the same amount of time as he did to any of the others, but he held her hand under the table.

'How you feeling about it?' asked Harry.

'Ok,' she said with a small smile. 'I haven't resorted to last-minute cramming just yet.'

Harry chuckled. 'What are they looking for?'

'I don't think they know themselves. It's the act that's the balm, not the result of it. Most Ravens don't feel easy without a book in their hands.'

'But not you?'

'I'd feel easy if I just knew what was _happening_.'

For one horrifying moment, Harry was prepared to divulge the whole tournament structure for her pretty smile, but thankfully he was getting better at keeping his head around stupefying girls. 'Well, not long to wait now,' he told her with a crooked grin.

'Potter, quickly get over here and disabuse Pucey of his leonine bravado,' Azra Shafiq demanded as soon as Harry had drawn near the Snake table.

'I don't see what's wrong with being a little positive. I could win,' Pucey argued as Harry came down to sit opposite them.

'He could,' Harry agreed loyally, his fatigue beginning to show. 'Shaf, you need to be a more supportive…' he paused. What exactly were these two sixth-year Snakes to each other? '…housemate.'

Dumbledore chose this moment to announce that the tournament was beginning, entreating the champions to follow Mr Potter out into the designated warm-up area.

'Oh shit! What am I saying? I can't do this. I'm gonna see my breakfast!' Pucey groaned, clutching at his plate. Harry gaped, increasingly unnerved by this sudden melodrama from the poised Snake.

'Calm,' Harry managed to force out, for what must have been the hundredth time today.

'No-one wants to see your breakfast, Pucey,' Shafiq snapped, even as she took his hand and squeezed it tightly in the single most un-Snake-like gesture Harry had ever seen. 'You need it to keep you strong. After all, you've got to win, right? You can't let our House down.'

'I won't,' Pucey smiled wanly, clasping her hand with both of his. Shafiq looked shy for the first time Harry had ever seen her, hiding behind a curtain of sleek black hair.

'Bloody hell,' Harry murmured to himself, 'it's happening.'

He turned his head away, partly to give the two sixth years the modicum of privacy they could get in a crowded dining hall but also to assume his role as shepherd-to-all-champions. Some had already spotted him and were gravitating over. From there he led them onto the field and bid them to divide into their houses, they did, forming four neat columns and answering promptly when Harry took the roll call. It helped them, Harry saw, the familiar conduct creating order despite their chaotic nerves.

Everyone had their guns and sabres with them, so all Harry had to do was guide them to the warmup tent. It was a generously proportioned pagoda whose four openings were covered with translucent blue screens. They functioned much like the curtains around the hospital ward beds, holding firmer than steel at one point but parting like a sheet of water as the students piled in. Inside, an assorted group of teachers were waiting for them. Nevertheless, everyone looked to Harry for the briefing.

'All right, soldiers,' said Harry, 'today's stage is an obstacle course. You'll be given twenty minutes to warm up here, and after that Professor McGonagall will call you out in alphabetical order. When you're called, you'll head out that opening, sprint down the hundred-metre path to the arena and begin the course. It's a time trial, not a race. The eight with the highest times will be eliminated from the tournament.'

Harry proceeded to talk them through the course, putting emphasis on the infractions and the penalty time they would add to the totals. Confident that they had grasped everything, Harry wished them luck and pushed through the membranous screen. Before it could close behind him, a middle-aged man forced his way through. Groaning, Harry rushed back inside.

'Sorry, but non-competitors aren't technically allowed in here,' piped Flitwick.

The man obviously didn't care, scanning the tent eagerly for something or someone with a meticulousness that was usually trained. 'Cedric?'

The requested boy groaned and pushed himself to the front of the champion horde. 'Dad, what are you _doing_ here?'

'Is there something wrong with wanting to see my son before the big event?'

'In this case, yeah,' said Harry with a wistful little grin as Cedric's father crushed his protesting son into a hug.

'Dad, this is Harry,' Cedric wheezed once his father had relinquished his grip.

Mr Diggory treated Harry to a punishing handshake. 'Aha, I get to meet the famous Harry Potter at last. Amos Diggory. It's an honour, Mr Potter, a true honour.'

'Not for me,' Cedric said cheerfully enough. 'More like a bloody embarrassment. Dad, I'm really glad you're supporting me and everything, but _please_ go back and cheer me from the stands like every other parent.'

'Yes, that would be best,' Harry agreed. 'I'll escort you.'

True to Harry's word, the arena lay a hundred metres from the warmup tent, its stacked, crescent-shaped stands – packed with excitable students – flanking the long strip of an obstacle course. During the relatively short walk, Mr Diggory had managed to numb Harry's ear with indulgent, paternal prattle, but the young soldier tolerated it. He wondered what his own father would think of him now, whether he would be proud, whether he would take the chance to boast about him to the first stranger he met.

With a polite goodbye, Harry ascended to the middle of one of the stands where a long, rectangular table seated the rest of the panel. His chair, the only empty one, placed him between Dumbledore and Moody. _Stellar_, he thought. On the other side of Dumbledore, Crouch sat looking exceedingly grim. _He's definitely not going to enjoy this._

Dumbledore stood to address the crowd while Harry scanned the surroundings, saw Hermione sitting between the Weasley twins and competently keeping them in check, Neville's grandmother brandishing a cane and ranting at a pair of terrified-looking Lion sixth years, Luna Lovegood with the disturbing bust of a blue raven on her head. The multiple screens that would show the standings as they were calculated were currently displaying a timer. Five minutes. Three minutes. Two. One. The boisterous crowd joined the countdown at thirty seconds.

The klaxon almost made Harry jump out of his seat, but he muted it to a minute tensing of his muscles. Nevertheless, Moody caught the flinch and roared with laughter. 'A bitta fun!'

'Just what we needed, sir,' said Harry.

Belby was the first to run up the path, faltering slightly when he saw the size of his audience, and pelt through the starting gates. He plunged straight into the mud, as earlier instructed, finding it a lot less pervious than he'd initially thought. He would have a minute before the next champion was sent in.

Things were going smoothly. Harry neglected to add "surprisingly": he wasn't that pessimistic. Cho did well after her initial reluctance to enter the mud pit and a minor hiccup at the minefield, where she set off a couple of mines in the rush to keep ahead. Cedric was fantastic, as usual, overtaking a couple of competitors and only incurring three infractions. He remained firmly on top of the scoreboard until Neville. Harry grinned fondly as the Longbottom scion powered through with a slower time but just one penalty, propelling him into the lead. If Harry weren't an unbiased authority, he'd cheer the Lion along with the rest, and perhaps glower at McLaggen whose reckless performance was still fast enough to see him through.

Pucey, the poor blaster, was taken the Snake value of caution to a whole new level at the minefield, hardly daring to move. Harry grimaced as one, two, three of the subsequent champions passed him. Ron, the final contestant, was already out by now, and Harry was torn between watching him and the slithering Snake.

'Come _on_, Pucey,' he murmured, and felt Dumbledore's reprimanding gaze on him.

Harry saw it happen moments before the explosion. One moment Pucey was crawling forwards, the next he was masked by an up-thrust of black smoke. The gasps and screams from the audience came after the smoke had cleared and Pucey was still lying there, his grip on his leg loosening as he drifted out of consciousness.

'Faulty mine,' Moody said casually. 'Looks like it chucked up metal instead of steam.'

'Pucey!' Harry yelled, shooting to his feet.

Moody clamped his hand on Harry's shoulder. 'No, Potter. It's not finished.'

'It's done. He's hurt.'

'The first casualty, but certainly not the last.'

'That's my friend down there!'

'It will always be your friend down there. Will you halt the war for each man fallen?'

'This isn't war yet. This is a school, and you _said_ no-one would be hurt.'

'Not seriously, no.'

'He's passed out.' Harry turned to Dumbledore with wide eyes. 'Sir–'

'Stay there, Harry. It is out of your hands.'

'But–'

'It is just as well that you can learn this now instead of at the frontline. You will have your own duties to perform, your own battles to fight, and you won't be able to save everyone.'

'So we're going to sit there and watch him?'

'No, it seems not,' said Dumbledore, gesturing to the arena.

After Pucey had fallen, yet more competitors sidled past him. All except Ron. He was on the safe side of the minefield, looking poised to run after the others, but then he relented, kneeling by Pucey's side.

Harry felt unadulterated pride as Ron lifted Pucey onto his shoulder and carefully navigated them through the rest of the minefield. The rock wall would prove more of a challenge. Ron climbed to the halfway point, used the grappling gun to fire to the top of the wall and abseiled back down. He fashioned a makeshift harness around Pucey from the rope and tested its strength. By the time he'd climbed back up to the ledge, Spinnet and Warrington were waiting there to help haul Pucey up to the top.

'Completely ruining their chances,' barked Moody, though Harry sensed admiration amongst all the gruffness. 'That should put them all out of the competition for good.'

'Unless we give them all a hefty time reduction for such a noble feat,' said Harry with a broad smile. When asked by Dumbledore why he was grinning so unrestrainedly, he answered: 'I always thought that being a leader meant that I would have to protect my army with everything I had, but now I realise that it's just as much about trusting them to protect each other too. Because they can, and they will.'

The stands erupted with applause as Pucey was carried over the finish line.

* * *

**AN: **Ron did good. I do like him sometimes.

Thank you, readers, for the continued support. I hope this story continues to entertain. Any thoughts, theories? Please let me know. Reviews make my day.

**Pawsrule**: Thanks, glad you liked it! **SodapopLover4524**: I'm really honoured that this fic has transcended your opinions of non-magic AUs. Oh Merlin, pun not intended. Best word I had. **Janus Darko: **You're clever. :D


	16. Chapter 16

I really do need to work on consistent posting. Luckily, my workload should be rapidly decreasing from now on (she says when there are two impending deadlines within this month!) so I will be able to post with more regularity. This chapter is the longest yet as a form of recompense – though some of you may curse me for it later.

* * *

A host of teachers loitered behind him as he knelt down to examine the defective mine. Quashing his annoyance, Harry looked at the incomprehensible pile of exploded metal and wished that Hermione was there with him. He'd had some training in machinery, enough so that he would be able to construct a radio or impromptu weapon out of basic parts. This piece of tech, however, stumped him. So he tackled it his way.

'Where's that safety official the Ministry so graciously provided? Can he disassemble mines? No? Stellar,' he muttered to himself. 'Professor Moody, the services of your x-ray eye are needed.' _For once, _he refrained from adding.

'What's your plan, boy?'

'Here's the faulty mine, here's one that was correctly activated and there's probably one still not activated out there. We're looking for differences.'

'And how am I going to know what they'd mean any more than you?'

'It's a start. We'll call some people in.' He stood and looked to the head professor. 'We'd better Floo the suppliers too.'

Wordlessly, Professor McGonagall headed for the castle.

'Mr Potter, we need to talk about this tournament immediately,' Mr Crouch said, his typically grey presence jarred by his purple face.

'I thought you'd say that.'

Harry sighed. And here he had been thinking that the tournament would go without a snatch.

…

By the time Harry had handled Crouch – in other words fended off his accusations with all the civility he could muster – it was lunchtime. The dining room presented a bizarre scene. Most of the students had clumped on one side of the room, gathering around the Lions' Table like a voracious tumour. Harry muscled to the centre to find his best friend sitting there with pink ears and a smile that was deciding between embarrassment and pleasure.

'What was going through your head the moment before you decided to go back?' a sultry, dark-haired, fifth year Lion – Romilda Vane, Harry remembered – was asking him.

Ron blinked slowly at her, as if trying to compute that someone of her calibre was indeed talking to him, before saying. 'I just thought: "what would any decent hom do?" The tournament's about being a good soldier, right? A good soldier should look after their own.'

A lot of the girls surrounding him sighed. Hermione, who sat opposite Ron, rolled her eyes but looked amused.

'You were so heroic,' Lavender Brown – also pretty, Harry noted – gushed.

'I was, wasn't I?' Ron replied goofily. 'Eh, Harry, over here.'

Harry slapping him on the back as he sat down. 'You did good out there today.'

'Thanks, com.'

'That was very worthy of you,' Hermione agreed.

'Always the tone of surprise,' Ron protested.

A couple of seats away, the actual victor of the first stage was calmly eating his lunch.

'Eh, Nev, good run,' Harry said, but he was one of few. Neville had won the race, but Ron had won the crowd.

Thankfully, order returned to the world and eating was more important than staring at the back of Ron Weasley's head. The crowd dispersed.

'Merlin, I don't know what you've been complaining about, Harry. I could get used to that!'

'You say that now,' Harry replied only half-humorously.

'I mean it. People actually look at me now. _Me_.'

_Instead of just you_ latched on quite easily. Harry promptly turned the conversation to Quidditch.

...

Harry wasn't allowed to visit Pucey until the next morning, before breakfast. By the time Harry entered the hospital ward, Shafiq was already there at Pucey's screened bedside, hands clasped tightly in her lap as she watched over her sleeping housemate.

'How is he?' Harry asked after pushing through the smartglass screen.

'The mine completely shattered the bones in his lower leg, but they managed to implement a metal replacement. I've been told that further operations may be necessary.'

Harry had to listen carefully to identify any accusation in her tone.

'I'm sorry,' he said.

'It's not your fault,' she told him, as if he was severely and offensively obtuse to think so.

'It's the panel members' job to ensure the tournament is completely safe for everyone involved.'

'Don't anger me.'

'Ok,' Harry nodded quickly, going to sit opposite her.

They made stilted conversation until Pucey opened his eyes, blinking in an unguarded, wholly un-Snakelike fashion. 'Did I win then?'

Harry and Shafiq laughed more from surprise than anything else. 'Unfortunately not,' said Shafiq. 'I'm very disappointed in you.'

Harry levelled an exasperated look at her, but Pucey laughed with all the innocent cheer of a first-year Badger. 'No you're not. You could never be disappointed with _me_.'

'Want to test that theory?'

Pucey laughed again, to the point where even Shafiq looked disconcerted.

'He's chemmed up,' Harry realised, snorting, 'Dosed as a pinkeye!'

Pucey laughed along with him. 'Do you know, homs? I've got metal in my leg now. I'm like half man, half machine, except not like Moody. Merlin, why didn't they lop my leg off so I can have a champ metal one?'

Shafiq looked appalled by the thought.

'I think he's going to be ok,' said Harry.

'Not until I get that metal leg. I'd roll my trousers up to scare the grandkids.'

'Pucey,' Shafiq admonished half-heartedly.

'Don't look so sad,' he replied, pawing the air until he found her hand, 'I love you.'

Pure, unadulterated shock touched Shafiq's face as elegantly as the blush that dusted her copper cheeks. Harry would have turned away from this private moment if Pucey hadn't yanked him forward by the shoulder. 'And you too, Harry. I love _everyone_ in the whole ES. Except Voldemort. Eugh, he can die. I'll kick him with my champ metal leg.'

'I think we should go,' mumbled Harry, righting himself and straightening his clothes with a couple of efficient tugs.

'Indeed,' Shafiq said evenly, much to her credit.

Her expression was once again controlled as they walked down the hallway to breakfast, but Harry had long ago learnt how to decipher the tell-tale glitter in her eye. 'He'll be fine,' Harry said, cautiously patting her on the shoulder. 'He's a Pucey, and a _Snake. _You Snakes are hard to subdue.'

'We are,' Shafiq agreed with some of her old boldness, and Harry breathed an inaudible sigh of relief.

Harry went to sit with her at the Snake table, just to absolutely make sure that she was all right, but along the way, they were intercepted by Harry's least favourite soldier in green. Malfoy walked backwards in front of him, clapping his hands too slowly to be anything but sarcastic.

'Congratulations, Potter,' he drawled. 'You don't waste time, do you? One down, eh? Who's next? The rest of the Snakes first, knowing you.'

'Blast off, Malfoy,' Harry muttered resignedly.

'Oh no, you don't get to act like the lofty Saviour anymore because I was right, wasn't I? You can't even look after forty schoolkids. Why are you hanging about him, Shafiq? Five knows, the Chosen Potter here had everything to do with putting your beau in the hospital wing.'

'Harry is no more culpable than you yourself, Malfoy, and far more tolerable company.'

'Thanks,' Harry said as they left the fuming blond in their wake and sat at the far end of the table. That was mostly to avoid the serpentine glares. As annoying as Malfoy was, it seemed that he was just regurgitating a popular opinion.

'Just stating the truth,' said Shafiq calmly.

The mood in the dining hall was far more restless than usual, Harry realised after his habitual sweep of the room. The reason why presented itself when he reached for his soltab. A message from Hermione lit his screen; it consisted of a single newslink. Harry knew its subject before he even opened it.

**OOPS**: **The Official Order of the Phoenix School's Latest Blunder Costs a Literal Arm and a Leg. **_It's only literal if it's physically true_, was Harry's first thought. _Anyone writing for a living should know that. Who did write this?_ **By Rita Skeeter.** _Now there's a name I hoped wouldn't resurface. _

**Parents left concerned by the clandestine operations of the Order of the Phoenix's self-titled military school were given new reason yesterday afternoon. A student, 17, unnamed at the behest of family members, was grievously injured and hospitalised over the latest in a set of perilous, school-sanctioned activities. The boy in question appears to be in safe recovery, however a greater issue arises from his suffering. How many more casualties will the school be expected to create before the Ministry takes affirmative action? How many more of our children must surrender their safety and wellbeing to the Order's brutalistic regime? **

_Brutalistic? _Harry snorted. _Sensationalist scrap_. _All bluster, no facts. _

**Mr Bartemius Crouch, a man with a great dedication to justice, has owned to being the Ministry's representative for the school's "Champions' Tournament" (the event responsible for crippling the young man in the first place) and agreed to provide a statement. "This is, of course, a troubling development in the school's proceedings," Crouch, 55, said. "The Ministry will indeed be reviewing the Order School's standards of teaching."**

**This re-evaluation could not come sooner for anxious parents with students enrolled. "I am genuinely horrified by what this school believes is acceptable to teach my child. I feel that we were all misled by false claims into enrolling our kids, completely unprepared for the dangers they would face." **_'It's a fucking military school!'_ Harry fumed. _'What part of "we're training your children to battle against Death Eaters" confused your expectations?' _

He couldn't even finish reading the article.

_You'd think one of us would have realised that the schools initials spell "oops", _Harry groaned to himself as his and Shafiq's eyes met grimly over the rim of their soltabs.

'It'll die down,' Harry said.

'Everything "dies down". It's whether this does so before or after irrevocable damage to our cause that's the main issue.'

Before the din of chatter and panic could grow too much, Dumbledore stood and calmed the crowds. 'I would just like to remind you all that the Winter Dance is merely a week away. I trust you upper years all have your partners invited, your regalia selected and your dance steps firmly revised.'

There was a flutter of yet more chatter and panic as the students remembered that they had neglected one or two things from Dumbledore's list.

'He thinks to distract us with a _party_?' Shafiq asked sardonically.

'Well,' replied Harry, 'it seems to be working. Besides, after all the grime and the gravity, everyone wants to dress up in glittery clothes and sketch to Celestina Warbeck.'

'If they play Celestina Warbeck, I'm leaving the place immediately.'

'There'll be an open bar.'

'All right, if they play Celestina Warbeck, I'm jetting straight for the bar.'

…

The fever of the Winter Dance hit the unsuspecting school with all the overwhelming force of a tsunami. Everywhere Hermione cast her amused glance, students were hurrying to pair up or soliciting fashion help from each other.

'You can't go, Ginny,' Ron muttered, his ears blazing red as he realised the attention of the whole corridor was on him. 'It's fourth year and up.'

'That's a really unfair rule,' Ginny retorted.

'Then take it up with Dumbledore. It's none of my business! Look, go and complain to Harry. He'll actually be able to do something.'

Ginny flushed madly at this. 'I, er, don't know him that well.'

'He's around _every_ leave.'

'I'll find another way,' Ginny declared grandly before running off.

'Little sisters,' said Ron as Hermione walked up to him. 'I'll never fig them out. How about you, Herms? All chemmed for the Winter Dance?'

Hermione thought about it. She had no date, no dress and no dancing skills whatsoever. 'Not really. I was thinking about not going actually.'

'What? After you saw how badly Ginny wanted to go?'

It was easy for Ron to say such a thing. Ever since his recent feat of heroism, he'd been basking in the adulation and invitations of many a fawning girl. He'd said yes to Lavender Brown, one of his most vocal new admirers.

'It's not really my area.'

'But it _could_ be,' Ron said as they headed for the fourth year common room. 'Maybe it'd be good for you. You look so fused all the time.'

'Glad you've noticed,' Hermione said flatly.

Ron merely laughed. Their paths diverged at the entrance to the common room as Ron spotted Lavender and barrelled over to her. Shrugging, Hermione found Harry just as easily and went to him. He was reclining with untidy grace on one of the sofas, eyes trained fixatedly on the ceiling. When he sensed her approaching, however, his brilliant emerald gaze fell to hers and he slew her concentration with a smile. And wasn't it typical that she only just started viewing him in such an appreciative light when it was now someone else's privilege?

He held a hand out for her, and she took it. 'Can I ask you a really big favour because you're the most stellar best friend on the planet and so kind and–?'

'No need to bring out the big eyes just yet, Harry. Of course I'm willing to help you with something, unless it's completely ridiculous or dangerous in which case no amount of pleading will get my cooperation.'

'Then will you go to the dance with me?'

Hermione was pretty sure her brain short-circuited for a moment. There was a chunk of time she couldn't account for, and Harry was already halfway through the next sentence by the time she'd reordered her mental faculties.

'-as friends of course. I mean, I don't want to strange you out or be one of those dirt-prints who cruise three-seater. It's just that Cho and I agreed not to go together, and Dumbledore sort of implied that I shouldn't be seen with a Champion, and all these girls have been asking me and I don't really feel anything towards them. Thank Merlin, I can actually get the words out to politely decline now.

'So that's why I thought you because you're my best friend and you wouldn't project anything extra onto my intentions or ask anything of me that I couldn't give. M'god, spending too much time around Cedric. Interrupt me, quickly.'

'Harry,' Hermione said, 'breathe.'

'Thanks, I will.' When he spoke again, he was a lot calmer. 'Of course, you can say no. Especially if you were going with someone else. I'm such a voider. Why didn't I think of that?'

'You'd be the first to think I'd already be going with someone,' she said ruefully.

'Why? You're brilliant, 'Mione.'

She didn't know if it was the smile, the sentiment or the pet name that swayed her, but the next thing she said was 'I'll go to the dance with you.'

She had just enough sense and self-awareness left to laugh derisively at herself. _Well, Hermione, time to surrender to Winter Dance fever. _

…

Hermione deduced that Padma was the girl to approach about this, but when she reached the common room, she saw that her fellow Raven was sitting with her twin. Parvati Patil was a lot more brazen and a lot less reasonable than her blue-tied counterpart and usually came as part of a manic package with Lavender Brown.

She was just about to tiptoe discreetly away when Padma called out for her to join them. The Dance seemed to be all that occupied their minds as they fell seamlessly back into frivolous conversation. Boys they were beginning to regret saying yes to, whether their dresses were too overstated – or understated, that was bad as well. Hermione let her thoughts fall, as they always seemed to do now, to her exasperating teleportation project.

'…ione? Hermione? Yes, you. Are you going with anyone?'

Hermione had two options. She could evade their question until she was pestered into telling the truth, or she could get it over with now. 'Harry.'

Parvati and Lavender gaped, but Padma seized her by the shoulders. '_The_ Harry?'

'I don't think there are any other Harrys,' Hermione muttered. 'Rather strange, thinking about it. It's a popular name, timeless.'

'Didn't I tell you, Parv? I told you there was something there.'

'We're going as friends,' Hermione interjected, so sharply that Padma deflated.

'Oh, well that can change. What are you wearing?'

'I'm not quite sure.'

'Inexcusable. Friends or not, you need to look stunning. You need to make his bloody brain implode from the sheer magnificence of your presence.'

'What if I don't want his brain to implode?'

'You grab one arm and I'll grab the other,' Padma told her twin.

'Heard!'

'What about me?' asked Lavender.

'You can get the doors, and grab her legs in between. She looks like she wants to bolt.'

The whole common room looked on in shock as Hermione Granger, the established indomitable genius, was physically lifted into the girls' dormitories, struggling and protesting all the way.

…

Hermione admired the tech that allowed her to review the dresses on the netmarket. Madame Malkin's dress shop commanded her soltab to scan her physique and then use its inbuilt projector to superimpose fitted outfits over her underwear-clad frame. With the addition of motion sensors that registered even her most minute twitches of discomfort and made the dress crease and swirl in response, the result Hermione saw in the mirror was quite convincing. The dresses on the other hand…

'Definitely not,' Hermione said when the other girls selected a pink dress with a neckline that scooped far too low.

'You look nice!' Lavender protested, but Padma was kinder and searched for something else.

'This one is better,' Hermione said of a more modest dress in a shiny shade of taupe.

'If you want us all to die of boredom then yeah, it is,' declared Parvati.

Hermione fought the urge to frown. Lions.

'This one!' Padma squealed, and when the other two saw what it looked like on Hermione, they quickly joined in.

Hermione pressed her fingers into her ears and studied herself, inhaling sharply. It was a delicate powdery blue and twinkled like the stars. It complimented her slim frame and highlighted her emerging curves. Its long, straight skirt made her look much taller and her shoulders, left bare, took on the appearance of polished alabaster. It made her look almost pretty.

'We'll have to do something about your hair,' Lavender babbled. 'I've got a bottle of Sleek-Eazy somewhere. That should do the trick.'

'And make-up!' Parvati added.

Hermione snapped out of it. 'No thank you. I'm fine. Maybe that other dress from before.'

'_No_, you've got to look sensational. We're not letting you escape that easily. You're going to show Golden Boy exactly what he's missing.'

'Maybe I don't want to. He's my best _friend_, and that suits me fine enough.'

'That wouldn't stop me!' Lavender insisted.

Parvati nudged her. 'Aren't you going with Hero Weasley?'

'Sure, doesn't need to stop me from hypothesising though, right? Harry's _beautiful_.'

Padma laughed and went to stand before Hermione. 'And so are you.'

Hermione sighed. So was Cho.

…

'Sorry if we were a bit overbearing earlier,' said Padma.

Away from her sister, the Raven regained her sense of quiet logic and dignity.

'Nothing to apologise for,' Hermione said.

They were tucked away in a library corner, and Hermione relished the new peace her surroundings gave her.

'We're just trying to enjoy everything while we still can.'

Hermione sat up. 'What do you mean?'

'We won't be returning after Winter Leave, me and Parvati.'

'What, why?'

'Our parents, they don't think this school is safe for us anymore.'

'When Voldemort returns,' (Padma flinched) 'no-one will be safe. There'll just be the people who are equipped to fight him, and the people who aren't.'

'We _tried_ to tell them that. We love this school, and we believe in it, but after that article…'

'I see,' said Hermione.

'I think a lot of people are going through the same thing,' Padma said. 'The student body's going to come back looking a bit depleted.'

'We'll soldier on anyway.'

Padma smiled wanly. 'I know you will. But what will I do?'

Hermione reached over and hugged her to avoid saying the only thing that came to her mind. _I don't know_.

…

Hermione couldn't believe that she had ever anticipated Flamel's lesson as a break from the rising mania of the Winter Dance. With yet another session of arguments with the Unspeakables but no progress to show from it, Hermione packed in a hurry and left gladly.

It was only ten minutes later when she realised that she had left her hair tie in the room and rushed back, snipping rather inventively at her attention span. Urgent murmurings warned her that the lab wasn't deserted as she thought it would be, and when she identified the voices that uttered them, she found herself listening at the door, curiosity outweighing conscientiousness. Why would Snape be talking to Flamel?

'-not quickly enough,' Snape was saying.

'You cannot rush progress. Are inventors machines to you? Do you think we have sliders we can turn up to increase our productivity by ten percent? The teleportation device will come when it comes and not a moment sooner.'

'Even when the threat is so near?'

'If someone told me what this threat was, maybe I'd be instilled with the Merlinian power of determination you so infinitely possess. As it is, I'm very old and tired of everyone's evasions.'

'I'll say this bluntly then. You and Ms Granger may be our only hope of defeating him.'

'Young Mr Potter–'

'–is not the man we'd thought he'd be.'

'How so? He does all you say, doesn't he? He learns everything he's taught.'

'I'm not in the position to tell you. Perhaps you can ask Dumbledore, coax the truth from him, or at least the permission to pursue it. All I can say is that when the Dark Lord returns, Potter's death is certain. The boy is no match for him and likely never will be.'

'The prophecy–'

'–is flawed, and the Dark Lord…I know what he has returned to the Whole Earth for. You would shudder to hear it.'

Perhaps he would, but that didn't stop the inquisitive scientist from wanting to hear it regardless. However, he settled for: 'And how do you know what He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named has returned for?'

'I followed him once. That day's passed, but he still counts me as among his most faithful.'

'A Death Eater, Severus, you?'

'And loyal to Albus, you can be assured of that. Ever since the Dark Lord… No, it does not matter. What does is that I am one of the select few who knows the weapon he is returning to the Whole Earth for, and it will be the most destructive, the most fearsome thing we shall ever see. We need to make preparations of our own if we would even dream of combatting what he plans to unleash. You and Ms Granger must hurry. Our side developing the tech to match the Dark Lord's may be Potter's only chance.'

'Do you know how long we have?'

'He's on his way.' Hermione's heart stopped for a moment. But they weren't ready; they were still kids, still training. She hadn't imagined that they would commence fighting until they were fully grown. 'As we speak, he is making his return voyage. We'll have a couple of years at the most.'

'Severus, Ms Granger is one of the brightest children, no, people I have ever had the pleasure to behold, but she is one girl. What hope does one girl have of resolving centuries of failed experimentation in that time?'

As usual, Hermione discounted the compliment and focused solely on Flamel's qualms. She could do this; she was certain. It frustrated her to know that Flamel secretly thought otherwise. And what of Harry? He was the best of them all. He'd offered up his childhood to this bloody, bone-grinding cause, and now the very people who pushed him to do so were deciding he simply wasn't good enough? She marched away before the ridiculous urge to burst in and accost Snape for answers overtook her. That would be beyond stupid, and Hermione Granger didn't do stupid things…except for fail again and again.

She stopped abruptly in her tracks. 'I'll make that teleportation device,' she whispered to herself. Not just for the cause, not just for Dumbledore, Snape or even Harry, but to see Flamel eat his words.

…

'That Raven girl you're with all the time,' murmured Cho as Harry carded a hand through her thick, black hair.

'I'm pretty sure you know her name's Hermione,' Harry replied amusedly.

Cho lifted her head from his lap and smiled guiltily at him. 'Ok, so maybe I do. I was just wondering. Do you _want_ her to be there, all the time?'

'Of course,' Harry said carefully. 'She's my best friend. You personally know how I like my smart Ravens.' He kissed her temple and she giggled, but her smile looked a little stiff.

'You _like_ them?'

Harry thought he sensed his mistake. 'Some in different ways to others.'

'Which way do you like her?'

'I told you, we're friends.'

'Have you ever thought about–?'

'No,' said Harry resolutely. 'She's like a sister.'

'How would you know what a sister's like?'

That question was like a small tremor in his contentment, and Cho felt it. 'Merlin, I'm sorry, Harry. I didn't mean anything by it!'

'That's fine.' Now Harry's smile looked a little stiff too, but Cho kissed him until it relaxed again. 'I'm taking her to the Winter Dance.'

Cho froze in her ministrations. 'Her?'

'Yes, Hermione.'

'But why?'

'Well, I have to go with someone, don't I? And she's one of the few girls I can trust not to, you know, take things more personally than they are. Surely that should make you feel better about this whole situation.'

'Anyone, anyone but her.'

'Why?'

'You don't hear them talking. Unbeatable Harry Potter and the brilliant Hermione Granger. Both so untouchable, always together. People speculate. When they see you at the dance…'

Merlin, Harry was glad the fifth year common room was as unpopulated as it was. 'Well, you know there's nothing to that, so why let that bother you? After the tournament we can date openly. Then even those empty rumours will die down.' _If her trust lasts that long_, he reflected wryly.

'Ok,' she said after a while of thinking. Harry exhaled a relieved sigh when she fell back into his lap. Sometimes, being with Cho was the most beatific experience, but other times it was like an endless race to uncover the countless things he was doing wrong and fix them before he lost her.

'Who are you going to the Dance with?'

'Not telling,' she retorted smartly, thumping him in the arm.

'Mature. I'm really seeing the benefits of dating older girls right now.'

'Are you?' asked Cho slyly, leaping from the sofa and seizing him by the arm.

Harry flushed madly as she led him to the girls' dorms. 'Yep, yep I really am.'

…

Harry scowled at his reflection in the bathroom mirror or, more specifically, his hair. He had trimmed inches off recently, military short. How was it growing back – in its typical chaotic fashion – so quickly? He'd seen enough caps of his dad to know who he had to thank.

'Almost ready, com?' Ron asked, sidling into view. He looked like a ravaged plum in his dated, ruffled suit, yet he glowed with excitement. Harry readjusted his decidedly nicer black suit, edged in emerald green and tailored to his build. He'd offered to buy one for Ron too – the Potters were from old money he'd been told – but as usual the Weasley vehemently refused his "charity".

Harry took one last look at his incorrigible hair. 'Let's just say I'm done.'

'Champ! Chemmed to jet down there. Lav said…'

Harry listened politely to everything Lavender apparently had to say about the Dance. It was quite a lot.

…

Hermione sneaked yet another disbelieving look at herself and, more specifically, her hair. That Sleek-Eazy formula had actually managed to tame her uncontrollable frizz. Whoever had developed it was a certifiable genius. _Perhaps they would consider joining my teleportation project, _she thought gleefully.

'Almost finished, 'Mi?' Padma asked, gliding up to her. She looked pretty in a bright sari, a remnant of a culture that seemed reduced to a simple fashion statement. A nice one, Hermione allowed, grinning at her friend.

'I think I'm ready.'

'Stellar. You actually look excited for this. That's right, it'll be so much fun! You know, Lav said…'

Hermione tuned out as soon as that name was mentioned but managed to maintain a façade of interest as they headed to the Dance.

…

'_M'god_, Harry! Is that Hermione?'

The grand staircase that usually served as nothing but a passage from the ground floor the first had been floodlit and festooned with ribbon and powdered with faux frost – or at least holo'd to look that way. A steady procession of girls descended from it, finding their partners among the cluster of boys that waited below. Some drew more attention than others, one of them being the beautiful young brunette in the light blue dress.

'It,' Harry had to swallow twice to say more, 'it is, I think.'

At best there were only hints of the friend he knew in the girl that walked towards him. Yes, her basic bone structure was the same, but her features were exaggerated versions of themselves, enhanced to their maximum threshold of beauty. Her hair was unrecognisable and piled high upon her head, and without the tawny mane to cloud her shoulders, he saw how slender and elegant her neck was. And – he rejected these thoughts as soon as they appeared because this was his _friend_ for Merlin's sake – he'd never realised what her modest, loose-fitting clothes had been hiding. Ron hadn't either, judging from the crude yawn of his gaping mouth.

After a century, Hermione was at the bottom of the stairs, and her friends – whom Harry had hardly noticed – branched out to find their own dates. Harry walked up to the half-familiar girl, for once not knowing what to say to her. She looked nervous too, her eyes flitting restlessly along his jaw, his shoulders, anywhere but his eyes.

'Hey, Hermione,' he murmured.

'Hi, Harry.' When he said nothing else, she continued: 'Do you not…? Oh, this was all a massive mistake, wasn't it? It's too much. I _told _them.'

Harry grinned. This was still his Hermione. The exterior had changed slightly, that was all. 'No, you look really nice.'

She looked up at him and smiled tentatively, and he was glad to see her two overlarge front teeth taking pride of place. 'You do too.'

'Well, there we go. We both look nice. Now that's established, may I have the honour of escorting you to the Dance?'

'Of course,' Hermione laughed, taking his proffered arm. Lavender Brown took time away from hiding a wince at Ronald's suit to shoot her an envious gaze. In fact, the pair of them were the subject of many covetous glances, but oddly enough, they weren't all meant for Harry this time.

'I'd better hold on tight to you today,' said Harry, 'or some other boy will whisk you away.'

Hermione eyed him cautiously. 'Would that be such a bad thing?'

Harry paused for a fraction of a second. She'd caught him, but what exactly she'd caught he didn't understand. 'Maybe not, but seeing who I am, I'm entitled to being some protective, aren't I?'

'A rather antiquated notion, Harry. I can look after myself.'

'I know. It's the homs I'm feeling protective over.'

Their open laughter drew curious stares and probing whispers, but for once the attention exhilarated her. She leaned into Harry's arm and gasped with him as they entered the main hall, cleared of dining tables (which now lined the room) and doused with enough glitter powder and fake conifers that it looked like a moonlit, winter forest. Students were already turning on the dance floor to the latest Weird Sisters hit, looking rather incongruous in their gauzy finery.

'This is amazing! Did you know about this?'

'No, I never get to organise this type of stuff.'

They quickly occupied themselves with raiding the buffet tables and chattering away. Harry laughingly pointed out Malfoy, already trying to escape his gushing date, Pansy Parkinson, who had affixed herself firmly to his arm. Hermione rolled her eyes at his petty amusement, not without fondness. They also spotted a browbeaten Neville, arm in arm with Ginny Weasley.

'So she did manage to go in the end,' said Hermione.

'She's relentless once she puts her mind to something, isn't she?' Harry usually learnt about Ginny's fire in second-hand scraps since she still went mutely bashful in his presence.

Cedric waved from the distance, and Harry returned it with a wide grin. Cho stood beside him, oddly looking away. Had they gone together? Harry was sure Cedric had mentioned a girlfriend once or twice, but had been deliberately vague on the subject.

When Dumbledore stood from his seat at the staff table, his pupils cheered. He kept it brief. 'Welcome to the Winter Dance, the first of hopefully many. It is with my utter delight that I introduce the music for the evening, the spell-binding songstress, Celestina Warbeck. Enjoy.'

The applause returned, doubled in loudness, as a curvy young woman in her mid-thirties took to the stage set in the corner of one room.

'How did we get Celestina _Warbeck_?' Hermione laughed as they moved further away from the revellers.

'This _is_ Dumbledore we're talking about here.'

As they drew closer to the open bar, where – surreally enough – Snape was posted to discourage overdrinking with black glares. Shafiq was already there with a bottle of Ogden's finest in one hand and a smirking Pucey in the other.

'Celestina bloody Warbeck, Potter,' she declared as soon as she saw Harry.

'I had nothing to do with it,' Harry protested, hands up in surrender.

'My grandma loves her.'

'You should be a dutiful granddaughter and doc the performance for her then,' Harry murmured distractedly. McLaggen was looking at them from across the room in a way that made him want to hug Hermione around the waist and never let go. 'Do you want the next dance?' he asked her.

'Of course!'

Harry resisted the urge to scowl at the immense Lion as they glided onto the dancefloor. Shyly, mirthfully, they worked out where to put their hands and how close they should stand to each other. Then the next song was starting. There was a quiet as they focused on their feet getting the steps. They did all right. Formal dancing steps were one of the many things filed away in Hermione's extensive memory, and Harry tackled everything with innate grace thanks to his training. Eventually, they were free to pay each other attention.

'What is this song anyway?'

Hermione listened for the lyrics. '"You charmed the heart right out of me", I think.'

'Impressive, Hermione. Scholar, soldier and expert on Whole-Soul music. Who knew?'

She blushed. 'My grandma likes it!'

Harry laughed, and Hermione felt foolish for how large her answering grin felt.

_Your every wish is my command_

_My fragile heart is in your hand_

_And now, at last, I understand_

_The magic about you._

They danced for what Hermione felt was a blissful eternity, the songs bleeding into each other until they were nothing but an ambient backdrop. But as time ambled on, Harry grew more restless, his gaze darting away from her and scanning the room.

'I should probably find Cho,' he finally said apologetically, catching her as she tripped on her dress. 'We agreed to meet up, so…'

'Of course, yes, you should go.'

'I saw Ron, Parv and Padma over there. And Nev and Ginny are around.'

'I'll find them, thank you.'

Harry fixed her with a strange look, as if questioning how much he really did want to leave, before pulling her into a fierce hug. 'You're stellar, 'Mione. You don't know how much.'

And just like that he was leaving. Hermione quickly fled from the centre of the dancefloor with more eyes on her than she would have liked, casting furtive gazes about the room for a friendly face. She saw some of her Raven friends and was about to head over when someone else caught her attention. He was a fifth year Lion, she recalled, and a house champion who had flown through the first round. The boy was formidably tall, but he was fairly handsome – _though nowhere near Harry_, a mutinous thought decided – and he was looking at her. The interest was welcome: first-hand, undiluted, unwavering. It beckoned. So she took a deep breath. And went.

…

Cho and Cedric. Cho and _Cedric_. Joyfully intertwined in a deserted classroom, trying and failing to plunge the radiance of their smiles in the shadows of their little hideaway. It was bizarre, in a way, to watch them, to see what Cho looked like from the outside when she kissed and cuddled and laughed that particular laugh which Harry thought had been for his ears alone. He wondered how easy it was to share such a special part of herself with more than one man.

Cedric saw him first, jumped. 'Harry, com! Didn't even hear you. Merlin, you're like a cat. How can I...? Everything all right?'

He faltered as Harry stormed towards him, gaped when a fist flew at him with lightning speed. The force behind it sent him flying, and Cedric was glad Harry hadn't aimed for his nose. In the background, Cho screamed, but neither boy noticed.

'How can you talk like that?' Harry yelled, wrenching him up by the front of his suit. 'Like everything's normal? How long did you know? How long were you two laughing behind my back?'

'What are you talking about?'

'Were you just pretending to give a damn about me?'

The truth dawned on Cedric's face. 'Your mystery girl…was Cho wasn't it?'

'Yeah,' Harry spat. 'How empty I must've looked, chomping up all that scrap about "people liking me for me". Did you meet up after and trade stories about stupid, naïve Potter, Chosen Voider?'

'No, Harry–'

'I thought you were looking out for me.'

'I was, _am_! Harry, I didn't know. I still don't know.' Cedric looked across at Cho. 'What's going on?'

'You must have guessed by now, Cedric. We've been seeing each other since we came back from summer,' she said for Harry's benefit, 'and then at some point I started seeing Harry too.'

'How could you do that? So easy?' demanded Cedric.

I'm sorry,' whispered Cho. 'When Harry came up to me, started smiling and talking, I didn't know what to do.'

'Tell the truth,' Harry said flatly. 'Would've spared us all.'

'But, I mean, I couldn't say _no_. You were the Chosen One. Who else gets that opportunity?'

Harry laughed acerbically. 'So what is it you're trying to say? I'm an oppressive figure you were too scared to refuse? Or am I some rare typa collectors' prize? No, don't tell me. They're as bad as each other.'

'I really am sorry, both of you.' She had tears in her eyes that not so long ago would have made Harry move worlds to cease. Now they just hurt him.

'Maybe leave, Cho?' Cedric asked, putting a tentative hand on Harry's shoulder and adding weight when it wasn't shrugged off.

She nodded, lips clamped, eyelids rapidly fluttering. 'Of course, I understand, I'm–'

'Sorry, we get it,' Cedric said, the brusquest Harry had ever heard him.

The boys watched blankly as she fled from the room and, under unspoken agreement, went to sit against the nearest wall.

'Sorry I hit you,' Harry mumbled into the new silence.

Cedric grinned then winced. 'Nothing that won't heal…I think. You've got some mortal punch on you.' Harry let his head fall backwards, thud dully against the wall. 'Hey, careful, you'll need that someday!'

'I must be whole brainjacked. I wasn't even thinking, I just…saw you two and got so boiled up, and I wanted to hit something so hard. If Moody saw me, he'd bloody kill me.'

Cedric looked closely at him. 'Are you going to cry?'

'No,' Harry snapped.

'It's all right, you know. I won't tell.'

'Don't need to cry.'

'Do you want some of this then?' Cedric asked, fishing a tall bottle from his pocket. The amber liquid sloshing inside of it was recognisable even in this light.

'Firewhiskey? Do you know me at all?'

'A byte won't hurt you.'

'I don't drink, don't want to lose control. I need this, being aware of everything at all times. It's the only way I know.'

Cedric shrugged. 'Well, I know I need this,' he said with a smile that was more like a taut, flat line. 'I don't have the resolve for that typa thing.' He took a deep draught that simultaneously impressed and concerned Harry. 'M'god, I still can't believe this,' he said after a while, his grip tight on the bottle. 'I thought I knew her.'

'Sorry,' said Harry, 'I know you were a lot deeper than I was, probably.'

'Only through length of time.'

'What do you mean?'

Harry's eyes widened as the bottle clattered to the ground, completely drained, and Cedric fished a second firewhiskey from the other pocket.

'Merlin, Cedric, why'd you have two?'

'One for me; one for her. Turned out well, didn't it?' He was sounding a bit slurred by now, but his fingers were deft in opening his next drink. 'You know the thing about you, Harry? You don't do things by half measures when it comes to people. Sure, your trust takes time, bloody centuries, but when someone's earned it, you're all in. You love with your whole heart. _All _of it. All the bitty chambers and veins and…'

'I get it.'

'No you _don't_. It's good that you're so devoted to people, but putting everything in can hurt you. And I don't want that because we're coms right? And I really am looking out for you, promise. You sure you don't want some?'

'Because you're advertising it so well to me,' Harry remarked, but he gave the bottle a second glance. Why shouldn't he have a sip? That was the thing to do, right? One of the simple freedoms he'd been denied throughout his life. 'I'll have a bit, just to stop you completely losing it.'

He wasn't prepared for the way it scalded his throat. He shoved it quickly away from him, coughing vehemently.

'Second time's better,' Cedric asserted. 'Don't take time over tasting it. Just hit it straight back.'

Harry took it again – stupid trust – and did as Cedric said. It warmed him, slowed and blunted his abrasive thoughts. He understood now. It was an easy fix, a way to bury your troubles for just one night. But sometimes that became every night, then every day too, all the time. It wasn't the way to live.

At some point, when Harry couldn't decide whether his vision had gotten infinitely sharper or subtly blurred, he said. 'I really thought she liked me, you know, _Harry_. I never felt better about myself. I know it's stupid. I'm the blasting Chosen One with all these champ skills and respect and shit, but I needed her to make me feel worth something. But she doesn't care. Why didn't I _see _it? What if it's not just her? What if it's everyone? What if everyone just–?'

'No,' said Cedric. 'Don't talk like that about your friends. Ron knew you before he even really understood what the Chosen One meant. Neville loves you like a brother. Dumbledore does everything for your sake. Hermione Granger. What about _Hermione Granger_? She'll stick with you 'til the end. Most the school will. And me, Harry. You're…bloody hell,' Cedric was red in the face by now, 'you're important to me, and I'm glad I didn't lose you too, ok? People care.'

Harry's eyes were stinging. It must have been the alcohol fumes. He was never drinking again.

'You know why Dumbledore asked me to help you out? I figged it properly now. It's not just another typa self-defence, dazzle the girl before she dazzles you. It's so you learn how much it can hurt when the dazzle goes away, and how to pull through it like any other obstacle you've mastered over the years… What?'

Harry laughed. 'I used to think you were a right spacer before I got to know you. Even now I forget there's some smart beneath all the silly and then you go and take me by surprise.'

Cedric took the backhanded compliment with a good-natured smile. 'It's not smart, it's experience…and maybe the alcohol. On that note, give it back.'

Chuckling, Harry passed the bottle back to him. 'What if this happens again? What if every girl after has ulterer-ulterry…'

'Hom, you're doing girls a _huge_ disservice. They're not all hacked from the same rock. Besides, I'm sure there are loads of them out there who just really want a moody, stubborn, serious bastard who's really good at shooting things.'

'Thanks.'

'Just stating the truth.'

And suddenly Cedric was clinging to him, arms like vices around his neck, and gibbering passionately about "happy thoughts" and "staying strong". Sighing, Harry patted him gingerly on the back, wresting the firewhiskey bottle from Cedric's limp hand.

'You won't be needing that anymore,' Harry mumbled, taking a hearty swig and promptly choking. What a night.

It was just as he was thinking that when the school's sirens went off. The shrill cycle of three repetitive blasts eventually cut through his mental fog. Three blasts: Death Eaters.

* * *

Eh-oh…

New reviewers are exciting! Old reviewers are treasured. **Grapes: **Yes, he has them in spades! Once in a while, it's nice to let that shine through all the wilful ignorance. **Pawsrule: **Ok, so she's not quite dead, but is this good enough? I'm glad you like the writing! **Janus Darko: **Yeah, he's not all bad! I'm glad you agree about the wormholes. When I (a complete layman, mind) read into them, they just seemed way too arbitrary to be a reliable, controlled method of teleportation. Any scientists in the house? Help me…please… **Yham: **Thank you so much! Oh, you don't have to worry about a womanising Harry. That simply isn't who he is to me. His compassion and moral integrity are definitely some of his best features.


	17. Chapter 17

Ok, so this chapter is not only unbeta'ed but written in rush to try and keep to a regular posting schedule, especially since the story is beginning to pick up. Apologies for any mistakes, and I hope it doesn't detract from any enjoyment you get from reading.

* * *

Death Eaters? Here? How? _Fuck_.

'Come on, Ced, get up.'

Death Eaters loose in a school of drunk, defenceless teenagers under the illusion that they were revelling in complete safety. How many would be like Cedric, barely within the threshold of functioning? Where was Ron, Neville, Ginny? Hermione? Of all the times he'd left Hermione to meet Cho, had there been one more senseless than this? No, he had Cedric here. Ced was worth looking out for too.

'Cedric, _please_.'

'What's going on?'

'Three blasts.'

The significance brought some clarity to Cedric's clouded grey eyes. He stood up quickly but had to lean on Harry to prevent himself from keeling over again. He laughed bitterly at his own ineffectiveness. 'Shit. We're birds in a cage, aren't we?'

Harry didn't want to affirm it. 'What have you got on you?'

'Nothing but these.' Cedric brandished the firewhiskey bottles with a wayward laugh.

Harry had hardly done better. His rifle, sabre and solar handgun were all up in his dorm, but that wasn't to say that he was completely unarmed. There was a dagger holstered to each wrist, which he released now with an efficient flick. He caught the right one cleanly and fumbled the left. He imagined that this was what it would feel like in space. His movements slower and yet heavy with momentum, encouraging clumsiness. He bloody hated alcohol.

'Stay here.'

'No way.'

'In your current state you'd be more help than a hindra… No, more hin… ugh, well you know it.'

Harry raced to the door and peeked out. There were shouts and screams echoing from further down the corridor, but no sign of struggling figures yet. Keeping to the walls, he glided – or at least attempted to – down the passageway on semi-light feet. Cedric lumbered along a few steps behind him, abhorrently loud, and yet it still took Harry a while to notice.

'Go back, you blasted voider!' Harry hissed at him.

'I'm not leaving my com in his time of need.'

Harry growled. 'I'm not letting you die because you're too bottled to see sense. Stay _there_.'

He glared at Cedric, sliding away until he reached a corner. The battle was real and dire and just on the other side of the wall he slumped against. He clutched his daggers, trying to level his head through sheer willpower. 'This is what you're here for,' said Harry, 'what you're _here_ for.'

He glanced around the corner. There were masked, hooded figures in all black, looking exactly as they did in his memories turned nightmares, except instead of his parents' bodies, they were standing over those of children. He tried not to look too closely, to identify them or their injuries. Instead he forced himself to look at the Death Eaters and work away the fear.

Four, he could take four. One of his daggers found a Death Eater's shoulder. While the man grunted and clutched at it in pain, Harry charged, throwing him to the ground and reclaiming his weapon in one, relatively neat movement. He was just contemplating whether he had the stomach for a killing blow when another Death Eater came at him with a solar sabre. Harry punched the fallen Death Eater unconscious with one arm and parried the blow with the other.

'It's Potter!' a third masked man declared unnecessarily.

Harry's limbs were sluggish as he duelled one, then two opponents, as if he had to think every command twice before his body lurched to comply. Still, he somehow managed to hold his own, dealing as many cuts as he took all while managing not to trip over his own feet. The fourth man crept up behind him but was briefly felled by a flung firewhiskey bottle: _Thanks, Cedric_.

But one of them caught Cedric's temple with the hilt of a sabre before he could do much else, and now there were three masked figures descending on Harry, and his vision was too hazy to keep track of them all. He was seized from behind. Gritting his teeth, Harry swung himself up and his dress shoe connected with the Death Eater foolish enough to stand in front of him. On the way back down, he used the momentum to keep going, pitching forward and twisting so that his captor rolled over then under and Harry had him pinned on his back.

He poised his dagger. He should kill this one. Maybe then Moody would deem him an adult. He'd been conditioned to murder. The first kill was always the largest obstacle, he was told, and once that was cleared everything got easier.

There was a mental state called the Patronus that Order students learnt to visit before battle. It was saturated with bright memories, and from this little spot of happiness, the weight of killing another was not so severe. Harry tried to slip into it.

'Harry,' the masked man whispered urgently. Not Potter, Harry. 'Harry, stop. We're not trying to hurt you.'

The boy's hand went slack around his dagger. He couldn't kill. He couldn't snuff out a soul like it was some sort of simulated entity. He'd learnt countless motions to kill intangible humans, but this man was flesh and blood. With a slice of his dagger, he uprooted the mask to reveal a pale, freckled face and earnest blue eyes that he recognised immediately.

'Bill?!'

The eldest Weasley boy tried to rise from the floor, but Harry kept him pinioned, the eye that he'd kept on the other circling Death Eaters (_Constant Vigilance!) _widening as he saw a swarm of black figures marching down the corridor towards him. A sober Harry could have easily dispensed of these four Death Eaters, but even he would have no chance against this horde.

A burn in his chest enshrouded his heart. He felt the organ pumping, straining, fighting to facilitate exertion that Harry wasn't undergoing. He hissed. The heat spread, lancing through his body like a thousand sabres. Merlin, he _hurt_. He didn't know if the blackness crossing his vision was the Death Eaters or his shuttering eyelids.

…

When Harry awoke, he felt awful – sluggish and unstable. Still he propelled himself to his feet, assessing the immediate area even as he felt himself for weapons. Nothing. And sometime during his lack of consciousness, he had been moved to the deserted passage that led up to the Great Hall.

Moody stood before him, and irrational assumptions filled his mind. _Sir, you work for _him_? You're a Death Eater?_ Wordlessly, Moody prowled over to the Hall's great oak doors and opened it a crack. Harry looked into the Main Hall, its glittering pageantry as misplaced as ever now that it was overrun by miserable students wrapped in blankets. They weren't tense as if under threat. They _drooped_, held their heads, looked cowed, pained or embarrassed. And the Death Eaters were nowhere to be seen. All he could see now were Order members in all black, gathered around the buffet table and watching the students analytically.

'It was a test,' Harry realised.

'And you all outstandingly failed,' replied Moody. He took Harry by the chin, checked his eyes. 'You've been drinking.'

'It was a party,' was the first unconvincing argument that left his mouth. 'It wasn't even that much.'

'Were you functioning to your full capabilities when you were attacked?'

Harry paused. 'Well, no, but–'

'After everything I expressly taught you, you go off and numb your senses, slow your reflexes, turn your thoughts to sludge?'

'Nothing was going to happen.'

'Except it did.'

They kept their voices in careful undertones, their palpable anger confined. Harry could sense how much Moody wanted to rail at him, but he wouldn't so near to the student body. Not if he wanted Harry to keep his faultless, venerated image.

'Weasley told me you collapsed today.'

Harry nodded. 'It came out of nowhere. My heart started burning and then I blacked out.'

'After I speak with the student body, you're heading straight to the infirmary.'

'I'm fine.'

'Don't test me today, boy. You're obviously overworking your body, which you have cuts all over by the way.' Harry looked down. He hadn't noticed. 'You will go, as will many of the others, it seems,' Moody said with a disgusted sneer. 'Now make yourself as presentable as you can and get in there. The other kids still look to you for guidance, arrogant, ignorant little shit though you are.'

They entered and parted immediately. Moody stormed to the elevated dais where the staff table sat. Harry, also seething, searched for Hermione. She was standing in the shadow of the immensely tall Cormac McLaggen, and yet he spotted her almost instantly.

'Hermione, are you ok?' he asked, running up.

'Harry, Merlin, you're all cut up.'

'I'm fine.'

'If that had been a real Death Eater raid…'

'Then I'd be at the mercy of the Dark Lord by now, I know. M'God Hermione, not you too.'

'I wasn't trying to say that.'

'But you were thinking it,' Harry said with a nasty edge.

'Careful now, Potter.' McLaggen made himself known, placing an overlarge hand on Hermione's shoulder. Harry didn't know what the strangest part was. McLaggen advocating any sort of caution or Hermione letting the great oaf touch her for more than two seconds. Harry's brow furrowed: one, two, and Hermione was still standing there with a flushed smile.

'Keep out of it, McLaggen.'

'Harry, don't talk to him like that. He's been nothing but polite to me all evening.'

'Has he? Really?'

'Yes, after you left, he kept me good company. He was interested, he listened to everything I had to say.'

Harry heard the stab at his desertion, whether it was intentional or not. 'Well, isn't he just a shining example to us all? Go on, what else did he do?'

Hermione folded her arms. 'Why bother if you're just going to be a complete _arse_ about it?'

'So I can learn the Hermione-approved way to act of course. What do you think, McLaggen? You're obviously better company, want to be Chosen One too? Merlin knows you'd do a superior job.'

'Harry James Potter!' The exclamation was warning enough, and Harry caught her wrist long before she could slap him, but her intent stung all the same.

He dropped her arm and turned to salute with the more attentive students as Moody addressed them from the elevated professor's table. His thoughts were a roiling mess that Mad-eye's words could not penetrate, but that didn't bother him. He'd heard it all before.

…

The day of home leave was a flat one, the destroyed magic of last night clinging to it like glitter powder that wouldn't scrape off the skin. The students were faintly disgruntled, shaken more than anything, but Harry was angry enough on their behalf to call Dumbledore, Moody, Snape and Lupin to court. So here they were, the five key authorities in the school, assembled in the head professor's office an hour before morning drills and yet wide awake.

'All right, boy, we're all here. Out with it,' said Moody.

'Why wasn't I told about last night?'

'Were you supposed to be?'

'I'd think my position means that it would concern me.'

'You're not usually notified before the midnight masses.'

Midnight masses were what everyone had taken to calling the surprise alerts that went off on sporadic nights. Students were expected to rise from their beds, no matter how late the hour, meet at the assigned field and be subjected to harrowing drills for as long as Moody deemed fit. The first time was always the worst, and the new students often underwent it disoriented and later aching, but eventually everyone got accustomed.

'This was a bit more than a midnight mass. _Fake_ _Death Eaters_, running around and incapacitating students? After all that scrapshit Skeeter put on the newshubs about our "brutalistic regime", you get the Order to attack us unawares? Kids will tell _stories_. I think I at least deserved to know if you were making such a big move.'

'No, you wanted to be told so you wouldn't have been caught off guard and shown up,' Moody hissed back. 'If only I had told you about my little scheme, you would have been on an active lookout for danger, which is what you _should have been doing anyway_. Has nothing I taught you sat in that slippery brain of yours? Always, _always_, constant vigilance.

'Your weapons from last night,' Moody added, tossing the pair of daggers at Harry without warning. Harry plucked them out of the air. 'Poor effort.'

'Well I've learnt from that.' True to his word, his sabre hung at one hip and the Ollivander solar gun was holstered at the other. He wouldn't be going without them again. 'Looks like something sat after all.'

'Potter,' Snape spat, 'need I remind you that we are not your friends, but your superiors. You will accord Professor Moody the respect he deserves.'

Harry tensed, suddenly aware of the lack of discipline he had just displayed. He brought his arms smartly to his sides. 'Heard, sir,' he said to Snape before turning to Moody. 'My apologies, sir, but you know how dear this subject is to me.'

'The affirmation of your administrative importance?' Snape drawled.

'Severus,' was Dumbledore's placid warning.

'Could you at least tell me, sir, why you chose that day?' Harry asked. 'Why the night everyone was looking forward to so much? Everyone was so carefree, full of life, just enjoying themselves.'

'And at their most vulnerable. They weren't carefree, they were careless, and that's not a state they can afford to be in for much longer.'

Harry looked as if he wanted to snap back but was trying to act on his best behaviour. 'You attacked them for having fun?'

'I attacked them because that is when the enemy would attack them.'

Emerald eyes stared at him too long, assessing, compiling, reminding Moody of just how sharp they could look.

'Yes, he would, sir,' he said simply.

Harry dismissed himself politely, making excuses of having to pack his modest trunk with a Spartan variety of practical clothes.

'He really cares for the students,' Dumbledore said upon his departure.

Moody grunted his affirmation. 'Gets it from his mother.' A rare smile crossed his face, even as Snape cast his eyes to the ground.

'I don't understand,' Remus spoke up. 'Why can't we tell him about the Dark Lord? We're hiding enough from his as it is.'

'To keep his faith,' answered Dumbledore.

'To keep him focused,' Moody replied at roughly the same time.

'You saw how he acted. We make him part of the tournament council and privy to certain, classified information, and suddenly he believes that he is one of us, not of them,' argued Snape. 'He speaks to us as if we are equals that he can reprimand. He presumes to rise above his station.'

'His station as the prophesied Saviour of the Earth Settlements, you mean?' Remus asked lightly. 'Albus, Harry needs to know. He needs to be ready.'

'It would only worry him, stress him. That isn't what we need.'

'You're trying to protect him, still,' Remus said, not accusingly.

Even so, Dumbledore seemed to hear it that way. 'I'm protecting the cause. If I told him, what would he do? Panic? Obsess? Train himself harder than he's already training? The boy collapsed yesterday, Remus.'

The wiry, overwrought brunet tensed even further. 'He…what?' His kneejerk reaction was to glower at Moody.

'The boy's fine. I made sure he went straight to Poppy. He's completely healthy.'

'He hasn't blacked out since he was nine. Alastor–'

'He is fine. He was fine then; he's fine now. It's overwork. He'll ease up a few days and come back safe.'

'This is all too much. Sirius was right. Merlin, he was. You're…this is James's child, we're doing this to. James and Lily's little boy.' He rubbed his eyes roughly. 'All this time, Sirius was making sense.'

Moody came and stood too closely to him. 'Careful there, Lupin,' he said with a surgeon's care. 'You're smarter than Black was.'

'Enough Alastor. Remus is just concerned for Harry, as he has every right to be. We all care for Harry here,' Dumbledore said. Again, Moody grunted his acknowledgement. Snape said nothing. 'Perhaps it will relieve you to know that we are not, well, projecting as many of our hopes onto him as we initially were.'

'What do you mean?'

'Perhaps we were taking the prophecy too much to heart. We've loaded so much of our faith onto the idea of a "Chosen One", but now we are looking into other avenues.'

Remus frowned, as he'd been making a frequent habit to over the years, but didn't voice his thoughts until Moody bellowed: 'Go on, Lupin. Spit it out. Don't keep it to yourself now.'

'So that's it? You develop this plan for fifteen, sixteen years, decide it doesn't work and discard it for the next? This is someone's life we're talking about. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it sounds like Harry's existence was just an experiment to you, and now it's failed you'll shove it into a corner and pretend you never believed in it in the first place.'

'We are not shoving anything into a corner, Remus, I assure you,' Dumbledore said. 'Yes, Harry may not be the man we need to combat Voldemort, but he is still very valuable to us.'

'Valuable,' Remus laughed sickly. 'The latest Firebolt is valuable. A big house, a fast simulator, a chemical mine.'

'Important, then. Harry is still very important. He is still a very fine soldier, and one day he will make a very fine commander. And he'll be a point of light to rally behind, the culmination of all the public's hopes and dreams. He will be something to believe in.'

'Only you don't, not anymore,' said Remus. 'That's the real reason you won't tell him anything.'

'Voldemort is out of his hands. Informing him would achieve nothing,' Dumbledore asserted, and Remus knew his brazen peck at dissension was all for nothing. He wasn't like James, or Sirius, or Harry; he couldn't fight his corner without flinching from the opposition. _Sorry, Harry, you're on your own. _

…

Hermione still wasn't talking to him by the time he left Hogwarts Castle, and Ron didn't appear to be feeling any more positively towards her. As soon as the Hogwarts Express (a train that only seemed to service the castle) had dropped them of at the connecting station and students dispersed to make their own ways home, Ron assaulted Harry with heated opinions.

'And that McLaggen spit was all over her, and she just let him do it you know. All those superior looks she gave Cho and Lavender, then at the dance she's giggling at him like he's the funniest hom on Five and he's pawing at her–'

'I get it!' Harry interjected. 'Don't need to hear it.'

'It's just hypocritical though.'

Ron himself had been ardently attached to Lavender Brown right up until the faux Death Eater raid according to gleeful rumour. Harry chose not to comment on that. 'Look, I don't like the idea of her with that bastard either, makes me bloody nervy, but she's definitely smart enough to make her own decisions.'

Ron treated this with a careful nod before slumping further back in his train seat and moving on to his next complaint. 'And what's this about not spending Ex-Mass with us? It's like she's avoiding us.'

Harry found it hard to be annoyed at Hermione when Ron was already there to fulfil the role so perfectly. 'You're getting way too used to my orphan-hood,' Harry managed to say lightly. 'She has her own family to celebrate with. She said she was jetting down after anyway. Can't be easy for her, you know, since she lives on the other side of the planet from you.'

'Is he _still_ vexing about Hermione and McGaggen?' Fred strode down the carriage towards them, munching on a packet of multi-coloured snacks that were meant to resemble solar crystals.

'We left twenty minutes ago,' George chipped in from behind, 'and the conversation hasn't moved forwards?'

'One would start to think you're getting a bit fixated with our charming young Raven, Ronniekins.'

'What?! No way!'

'Then do us all a favour and shush about it,' said Fred. 'You're killing my festive mood worse than the Winter Dance did.'

Ron was pink by now, an especially flagrant red in the tips of his ears. 'Where's Ginny anyway?'

'Escaped while she still could,' George informed her. 'Though this time, we don't know who to credit, Harry or you.'

Harry sighed. This was going to be a long train journey.

…

The origins of Ex-Mass Day were very unclear. Many attributed them to the deliverance of humankind from the Whole Earth, Merlin and his Saints loading all of humanity that could fit into gargantuan spaceships to commit "Mass Exodus". Others were certain that the holiday had some significance long before, though the details were blurred.

Wherever it had come from, it had traditions to be observed, and the Burrow was one of the best places for it. The whole house was bedecked with asphodel, a Fiver tradition that harkened back to the mythos that their first ship had landed in a meadow of it. Rings made from brass, wood or anything else the Weasleys could improvise were another popular decoration, representing the cycle of life and the hope a new world could bring. Beautiful scents would waft from the kitchen, as Ms Weasley prepared seasonal delights. Hearty stews, Merlin staffs, bread rings and pastries with surprise fillings, both sweet and savoury. For the day itself, it would most likely be goose stuffed with redolent spices. Birds of flight were a standard facet of the Ex-Mass meal.

Presents were stored in the "ship", a casket – typically wooden – that was more extravagant the higher the family's income was. The Weasleys was a battered, plain, stoutwood thing that had been in the family for generations, but it was large enough to hold everything the large clan had to give each other.

A less popular tradition, one seemingly contained to the Weasley family alone, was for Celestina Warbeck to be played throughout the house. The children had long ago learnt not to interfere with their mother's musical recreation, although they had all come to resent it in some shape or form over the years.

True to form, A Cruiser Full of Hot Strong Love was already blaring when Harry and the Weasleys arrived home. Molly was bopping around in the kitchen, cooking up something that smelled wonderfully of all the foods Harry refused to eat during term time, but she stopped to greet her brood.

'Your Father and Percy are upstairs,' she told them. Fred, George and Ginny headed up. 'Dance with me, Ronald!'

'No way, Mum!' Ron wriggled away from her outstretched hands.

Harry was the next person in her sights and less resistant, smiling amusedly as they swayed around the kitchen. 'It's not so bad to dance with your mum once in a while, Ron.'

'When it's Celestina bleeding Warbeck year after year,' his friend mumbled.

'Careful, young man. She was a staple of my childhood. I'm allowed to reminisce once a year.'

'What?' Ron spluttered. 'But she can't be that old.'

'Ronald Bilius Weasley!'

'What he means to say,' Harry moved to shield his quivering friend, 'probably, is that we saw her sing at our Winter Dance. She looked to be in her thirties at the most.'

Ms Weasley calmed. 'She has to be almost eighty by now.'

'Eighty?! M'god. Do you think we'll look that good when we're eighty, Harry?'

'Maybe, if we keep to this disciplined lifestyle.'

'I don't think it's completely natural,' Mrs Weasley told them confidentially. 'I heard something about glamours being involved.'

The boys looked to each other quizzically.

…

'Mummy!'

The floor was so close, the ceiling so far away, and Harry ran between them, calling out for his mother. He saw her knees first, but she quickly lifted him so he was looking into her sparkling, benevolent eyes, the predecessors of his own. He loved that they had the same eyes. They were like matching windows in adjacent houses, perfect for childhood friends to whisper their secrets through.

'Hello, baby, come to check up on me?'

'Daddy's in the garden,' Harry trilled, wrapping his little arms in their natural place around her shoulders. 'He got to-ma-toes and po-ta-toes!'

'He's got tomatoes and potatoes? How exciting. We will have a wonderful feast for dinner.'

Harry cheered and wiggled his legs. 'Siri and Moony too?'

Mum sighed and stroked his hair, father-dark, not her brilliant red. 'Not today, baby. It's just us three today.'

'Why?' Harry moaned, even as he resigned himself to it. Just three was the norm, what he was used to, how it would always be.

'Because they have to live their lives in the far far away world, remember Harry?'

'And we no go there because _this_ is our world. It's our secret world.'

'That's right, baby,' Mum smiled adoringly, nuzzling their noses together. 'Our secret.' She poked him over his heart and he giggled.

'Do I hear laughter in my hallway?' Dad's jovial voice sang down the corridor.

Harry squealed and scrambled about in Mum's arms. 'Hide!'

'Is my little helper messing about when he said he'd help me with the garden?'

Mum set him down and moved to stand in front of him, and they both tried not to tremble with laughter as Dad marched towards them, failing to mask a smile of his own. 'Where's Harry?'

Harry tried to run past him, his screaming not really aiding his stealth, but Dad caught him around the middle and hoisted him up into the air. 'You're not getting out of it that easily, little man!' Harry chuckled giddily and curled into his warm arms. He felt his mummy come up behind him and hug them both so he was enfolded in a cocoon of arms and love and home and _safe_.

He mustn't let them let go. He had to keep holding on to them for ever. Dad moved back, but Harry clutched tighter, shaking his head into the man's shoulder. Mum tried next. She was harder to keep still. Harry was fighting a lost cause. They were letting go. He couldn't let them go. The arms were retreating, taking with them the love and the home and the **safe**.

It had been a while since Harry had awoken with tears in eyes. He hardly noticed them. The pain in his chest was too demanding, scalding and throbbing until it had his undivided attention. He rolled onto his stomach, up onto his hands and knees, holding his hand to his heart and breathing. Slow, slow, count in fives: just like Madame Pomfrey said. Don't wake Ron. The pain abated; his heart eased into a more natural pace. Harry relaxed, fell on his face and let himself soak in the vivid memory of his parents before the beautiful realness of dreams dissipated completely. He refused to cry.

…

Holiday or not, Draco was out before the sun rose properly every morning, returning unapologetically sweaty and dishevelled. Each time, his father would be awaiting him at the table, sipping his morning brew and surveying the holo news wall, the very picture of a sleek, refined Forbear Councillor and the counterpoint to his ragged son. Then Draco would head upstairs and clean himself as best as he could before joining his father for breakfast.

Draco would carefully regard his father across the table, seeing the sneer that his father was too aloof to exhibit but nevertheless was there, and combat his father's interrogation.

'How are your relations with Potter?' was a common opening.

'Good, Father,' Draco would say after a carefully weighed interval of time, not too rushed, not too hesitant. 'Very amicable.' There were some words, Draco had discovered, that were extremely useful to catalogue synonyms for. He and Harry Potter had been every variant of friendly as far as his father knew.

'You say that and yet you've neglected to invite him here,' was the gripe that always followed.

'I have! It's just that, well, he usually visits the Weasley home during the holidays.'

Lord Malfoy had heard this tale many times, yet it never failed to make his jaw clench with indignity. 'The fool boy chooses those uncouth vermin over the company of a Malfoy. It's positively supernatural. It makes me wonder how effectively you are representing the family name.'

This would be the point when Draco tried to hide his anxious swallow with a sip of tea, but ended up choking. However, one fortuitous day – fifth year, winter holidays, a week in – a feasible excuse came to mind. 'We are friendly, Father, I promise. If I were being completely honest, I suspect there's been some sort of external interference. Yes, Dumbledore, that meddlesome coot, has been keeping a close eye on all the students he thinks are scions of Death Eaters. Pot – Har – Potter pollutes the air with worshipful nonsense about him and his wise views. I wouldn't put it past Dumbledore to use his influence on Potter to nudge him towards the Weasleys.'

It had always been easier to lie long-distance, where he didn't sweat nor stammer, but he was improving all the time. He felt puckishly victorious when his father accepted his falsehoods.

'This could be problematic. When the Dark Lord reappears and demands that we produce Potter for him, one of the few tasks he charged us with…'

'It is possible, Father,' Draco lied smoothly. 'Dumbledore may not like him to spend extended amounts of time with me, but Potter isn't completely under his command. He has a big heart– er, I mean, an undying loyalty to the people he views as friends. If I make it seem urgent enough, he will go where I bid him.' Draco would have to think a way around that later.

'Very well, it's also high time that we address this…quaint morning regime of yours.'

'Yes, Father?'

'It brings into question how…faithfully you are committing to the Order School's ideals.'

'Not at all, Father. The school continues to be a circus of idealists and incompetents who couldn't even dream of defeating our Lord. However, I continue to train every day because I know that when term starts again, classes will be just as rigorous as they were before we left. Only a dullard would cease training for two weeks and expect to maintain a respectable performance on their return, and you didn't raise a dullard, Father. I follow the Malfoy doctrine and thrive wherever possible, even if it's at that pitiful school.

'And also, would you expect my physical fitness and weapon skills to aid the Dark Lord when he returns? In a way, I'm training to be as competent a soldier as I can for him.'

Lord Malfoy could not really argue with that, Draco recognised smugly.

'Perhaps it is an acceptable practice for you, as uncouth as it makes you look. The sooner you are removed from that life, the better. Everything about the Order's methods disgust me: the way they assume control over you. The stories you have told: the monitoring of your correspondence, your restriction to the grounds. You said they _apprehend_ your tech.'

'Only if it's new and violates the perimeter alarms. They disable any mapping functionalities and give them straight back.' Draco began to shrug, then remembered how such insouciant gestures irked his father. 'It makes sense seeing what lengths they go to to keep the building unplottable. Not even the brightest of us have managed to work out the route the school train takes us from the connecting station. It twists and turns and probably lasts a few more hours than necessary, and it took most of us a cupla– _couple_ of years to realise that the scenery flying past the windows was simulated. Then, of course, the solar cars take us straight from the station to the castle gates. The Order are fastidious in the respect of secrecy.'

By the time Draco had ended his spiel, his father was looking at him very strangely indeed.

'Well, not to worry, son. Very soon this will all be irrelevant. Your mission will be carried out and you will be free to attend a school of real merit and less theatrics. You've always favoured Durmstrang, I recall.'

'Yes, Father,' Draco murmured uncertainly.

'I'll notify them about your possible attendance for next year.'

Next year? What was happening this year?

…

'Ex-Mass Day!' Ron bellowed. Harry groaned and buried his head in his pillow. His best friend was up at an obscenely early hour. And that said a lot when it came from Harry. 'Ex-Mass Day! Ex-Mass Day!'

'Merlin's beard, Ron. It's still dark outside.'

'It's still dark outside until really late,' Ron complained. 'Come on, com. Just a quick peek into the ship. You know you want to.'

'I'm fine just here actually,' Harry said. 'Though if you're up so early, you might as well fit some morning training in.'

Ron groaned. 'It's Ex-Mass _Day_.'

'Yep, you've made that pretty clear.'

'Who does anything active on Ex-Mass?'

They did, it turned out, when they exercised out in the Burrow's surrounding fields until the rest of the house woke, Ron bemoaning the situation in clouds of steam.

Harry almost felt like part of the family, sitting around the stoutwood ship with them and divvying out Ex-Mass presents. All the Weasleys were here today, Bill and Charlie having returned from wherever the Order had posted them. And they all wore one of Ms Weasley's hand-knitted jumpers, an enduring tradition that even Harry benefitted from. His jumper was vivid green and very warm.

'No hard feelings about the Winter Dance?' Bill asked Harry over the open ship.

'Don't worry about it,' Harry returned, finding Ginny's present for Bill and handing it to him.

He was particularly proud of the gift he'd found for Ron. It had taken a fair amount of research and a wheedled favour from Dumbledore, but he'd managed to procure a highly classified selection of objective war vids from across the settlements and select the portions that demonstrated remarkable tactical victories.

'This is stellar, Harry!'

'It's nothing, com. Just glad you like it.'

'Have you,' Ron paused to scratch his neck nervously, 'opened Hermione's yet?'

'No.'

By silent agreement, they opened their respective gifts from her together. 'Oh,' Ron said, light with surprise, 'champ!' He held up a thin, obstinately orange slab of translucent material. 'You scan it with your soltab and get a whole Chudley Cannons anthology!'

Harry had half a mind to tell Ron that he knew how launchcards worked, thank you very much, but the redhead looked far too elated to care. Harry looked down to his own present from her and his heart warmed. It was a photocard on which Hermione had compiled moments of contentment he hadn't realised had been preserved. Harry and Neville training students in their early morning sessions, Ron posing in his overly-padded Quidditch uniform while Harry tried not to laugh, that time the twins had dyed Harry's hair green, Harry trying not to fidget as he and Hermione studied in the library, Hermione eventually losing focus too and engaging him in hushed conversation. Yes, perhaps Hermione had forgiven his outburst after all.

'Now I typa feel spitty,' said Ron, still salivating over his Cannons' compendium. 'What I got her's nowhere near as good. What'd you get her, H?'

…

What had Harry got her? Hermione was nestled on the sofa between her parents, having just added Ron's generic offering to the pile of infobook launchcards that lay at her feet. Her father was sluggish between the early rise and the only slightly less early ingestion of spiced mead. Her mother tutted at him before falling back to admiring the handbag Hermione had bought her.

'What's this?' she asked curiously as Hermione unearthed a collection of pots and tubes. Attached to the largest was a tab, whose words shifted as she read.

_Dear Hermione, I've noticed that they've been working you hard lately. I don't know exactly what on, and if I asked I probably wouldn't understand anyway, but it looks really taxing. This collection of creams, gels, smelly things – and other pharmaceutical substances I have no name for – is meant to de-stress you and optimise your mental faculties. I know it seems over the top, but Madame Pomfrey vouched for it_.

_Happy Ex-Mass, hope we're ok,_

_Harry._

Hermione opened the closest vial and breathed in the fresh smell of camomile and lemongrass. Her mother brought her back to Five with a gentle tap to the shoulder and a knowing smile. 'There's another package from him.'

When she opened it, she laughed. It was a box of luxury chocolates: dark – because her sweet tooth hardly existed – and infused with coffee, chilli, mint, nut and salted caramel flavours.

'A contingency plan,' she told her mother, 'in case I didn't like the first gift. Well-manoeuvred.'

Mrs Granger squeezed her shoulder. 'Are you going to go?'

'Yes, I think so.'

…

'Ah, there she is. Hermione, dear. Come in, come in, you must be freezing – a lot colder up here – and exhausted, jetting trans-state all by yourself.'

'It's really not a problem, Ms Weasley,' Hermione said after being released from an enveloping hug. 'I like being here.'

'It's _Molly_, dear_._ Aren't you a sweetheart? Would you like something to eat? I have some duck pie leftover from today's dinner.'

Hermione flushed with tentative pleasure, as if she had become one of the Weasleys that were currently swarming her. Ginny wrapped her in a hug almost as bone-crunching as her mother's. The twins received her with identically gleeful smiles. Ron raved about the Quidditch compendium she'd gifted him, and Mr Weasley enquired into her family's health, all while Ms Weasley tried to guide her into the kitchen.

Then her eyes met Harry's through the sea of red, and they exchanged hopeful smiles. Harry cocked his head towards the door to the garden. She nodded in reply.

The Weasley garden was still as beautifully wild as before, though at this late hour it was thrown into shadow, the light from the house only hinting at the profound disorder of its nature. Harry waited on the modest veranda, leaning against its balcony, for Hermione to diplomatically wave off the Weasleys' attention and join him there. After around ten minutes, she did.

'So I'm sorry about those things I said,' Harry murmured as soon as he ascertained that they were alone. 'I wasn't mad at you, not really. Mad-eye and Cho and the whole Death Eater charade, they just piled up one after the other and…' he grinned sheepishly at her raised eyebrows, 'that's no excuse, is it? But I really am sorry. I think I was right to be angry, but I shouldn't have taken it out on you.'

Sighing, she leaned her head against his shoulder. 'Thank you, Harry.'

'I suppose I should apologise to McGag– McLaggen too.'

'I wouldn't bother if I were you. I didn't want to admit it earlier, but he's kind of a ship-sized spit.'

_Of course_! 'Really?' Harry asked innocuously.

She flushed. 'Well, he seemed a lot more interested by my…um…feminine attributes than anything I had to say.'

Harry buried his face in his hands. 'Uh-huh.'

'And he was a pretty terrible kisser. At least I think he was. It's a bad thing when they slobber, right?'

And Harry jerked up to face her again. 'You–?! He–?! Gah?!'

'While I'm flattered by your concern, Harry, I'm fifteen years old and somewhat intelligent. I'm perfectly capable of making my own decisions, as badly as they can turn out.'

He laughed a short, befuddled snuffle of a laugh. 'You admitting you were wrong, that's really something.'

Hermione nudged him lightly. 'Novices are allowed to make mistakes, you know. We can't all have beautiful, fifth-year girlfriends.'

'No, we can't.' Harry exhaled deeply. 'Cho and I split.'

'Oh!' They gracelessly tried to negotiate the situation, unsure of the protocol. 'I'm sorry.' Hermione tried to sound sincere. 'Why? Can I ask why?'

'She was with Cedric all this time too.' Harry tried to sound blithe. 'Tricked us both.'

'Oh Harry, that's awful.'

He was still when she hugged him, staring obstinately out into the mostly indistinguishable murk of the garden, but eventually he let his head rest against hers. 'It's funny, now it's over, I can see all the little problems I'd made myself blind to while we were still together. I'm not sure it would have lasted much longer even if I never found out about Ced, but I clung on anyway. Not just because of her, but because sometimes you just want to feel needed in a way that's not impersonal or significant or _scary_.' His fists were kneading the railing absently, the knuckles white.

'I know what you mean,' said Hermione.

Even though his face was mostly in shadow, his eyes and teeth still gleamed as he smiled. Cho was a complete fool. She had half a mind to tell Harry this, against her better judgement, when Ron raced to join them.

'Snow!' he declared. 'Look homs! Didn't I tell you, Harry?'

Ron slung a heavy arm around each of their shoulders, and Harry made a good effort at matching his joviality.

'Where? I see nothing,' he challenged.

'Look, right there. You need specs, com?'

'I'm fine thanks, Ron.'

'Big, thick, round ones! Look, there goes another!'

What naturally followed was a snowball fight of great enormity, Hermione dragged kicking and screaming to take part and even numbers. She, Harry and George battled Ron, Fred and Ginny with such a display of skill and military intelligence that it would make any non-Order kid want to attend their infamous school, no matter what the newsposts said.

…

The senior Malfoy's presence had been scarce for most of the winter holiday. Draco did not mind as much as he used to. In fact, the effect was rather restorative. He could gather his mental faculties in the merciful breaks between his father's cross-examinations and towering expectations. He had the servants to grant him the requisite amount of attention, who came with the added bonus of being unable to command him or enfeeble him with pithy glares.

Draco knew by now that his father escorting him to Hogwarts Castle's only connecting train station was more for show than sentiment. Nothing meaningful was ever exchanged. They rode in silence, side by side in the sleek solar car of the year. So when his father placed a hand on his shoulder and dismissed Dobson, who'd dutifully been managing the luggage, Draco was completely thrown.

'I have an extra gift for you, son,' Malfoy said.

Draco had received the usual nigh-insurmountable massif of gifts, a full catalogue of everything a privileged teenage boy should officially want, but this was different. It was a ring formed from white-gold, its sapphire marked with the Malfoy emblem. Carefully, Draco slotted it onto his finger.

'You are a Malfoy. It is high time that the world remembers that. Never take it off.'

'Yes, Father.'

Lord Malfoy watched him a while with ice blue eyes. 'Very well, I will see you in the summer.'

'Yes, Father.'

He called for Dobson, who stumbled after Draco, the luggage bending his tiny frame in half. Eventually, the weight grew too much, and he crumpled beneath it. Draco tutted. 'It really isn't that difficult.'

'Then you should be doing it yourself, Malfoy.'

Saint Potter and Nethead Granger: exactly who Draco needed to see rushing to the aid of his personal valet. Potter lifted a couple of the larger suitcases with a minute grunt of effort while Granger helped the man to his feet.

'Are you all right?' she asked, in what the girl must have thought was a soothing tone.

'Yes, thank you, Ms, and Mr – Mr P-Potter, sir.'

Draco bristled. His servant's doe-eyed admiration of the universal hero was something he didn't want to see. 'Dobson!'

'Malfoy!' Potter retorted. 'If you can beat most of your year in sabreplay and keep up with Moody's harshest regimens, you can lift your own bloody luggage onto the train. You do it on the way back from Order School, don't you?'

'It's none of your business,' Draco hissed, but he felt oddly gratified. Potter had been following his progress, had he? He realised moments later that the sainted Chosen One probably noted the abilities of all the students in the school. Gruffly, he seized a couple of bags from Dobson's feeble grip and headed for the train. He heard Harry following behind, lugging the suitcases. 'You go on, Hermione. I'll find you in a bit.'

'I don't need your help, blessed Saviour,' Draco snapped.

'Still I'm giving it. It's a vice of mine.'

'Typical that the Chosen One's vice would be the common man's virtue.'

'Impressive, Malfoy, been writing poetry over Ex-Mass?'

'No, I just have a natural eloquence that you so inherently lack,' Draco spat. 'Now blast off, Potter. While there are people gagging for your company, I'm not one of them.'

'Ok, Merlin, Malfoy. Heard you loud and clear.' Potter sauntered off, greeting students of all shapes and sizes with waves, greetings and understated smiles. If that didn't make Draco hate his guts even more.

The doors to the train were ringed with scanners and sensors, a prelude to the detailed security checks they would face at the Hogwarts Castle gates. Draco always felt nervy when passing through them, even though he knew for a fact that he never carried anything that violated defence regulations. An irrational conscience blinked into life for the few seconds before because it felt like _anything_ could set it off. The callous things he'd said to Goyle just yesterday, the nasty thoughts he had about Potter's little disciples, the general Death Eater…ness in his bloodstream. Then he stepped through, the alarms stayed silent and the semi-regretful reasoning withered away. Today was no different.

Lord Malfoy, Councillor of the House of Forebears, observed his son from afar, only turning away when he boarded the train without incident.

* * *

**AN**: Thank you for reading! Hope you enjoyed. Any thoughts on this chapter or the story arc in general? Please let me know. I love to hear from readers.

Thank you Lupinescence! I'm glad you think so.


	18. Chapter 18

So, that time when I told you all that my workload was rapidly decreasing? I was being very silly.

**Warnings: **mentions of physical and mental abuse, science that may or may not be questionable. I'm not actually sure.

* * *

As Padma had dolefully foretold, a considerably diminished amount of students sat down to their first meal of the new term. Whispers circulated around the remaining pupils, absentees accounted for and ranked by how surprising their departures were.

Hermione already missed Padma. Morag – another Raven casualty of defensive parenting – too. The carnage seemed evenly sprfead between the Raven and Badger houses, but the loss of upper-year Snakes outstripped every other demographic. The tournament had lost eight champions – Harry had informed her with a grim smile – half of them green.

'It's weird how empty it all looked,' Lisa Turpin said back in the dorms as their still-complete contingent prepared for bed. 'Even though most of us were still there.'

'Justin didn't tell me he was leaving until a couple of days earlier,' was Hannah Abbott's miserable contribution. 'He said the Order doesn't care what happens to its students anymore and he wasn't about to become the next Pucey.'

'Of course the Order care about us,' Hermione said. 'We're like their children. A lot of us literally are!'

'I think most people's quarrel with the Order is not that they don't want to ensure our safety, but that they can't,' offered Lisa.

'And what do you think?' asked Hermione.

'I think that when You-Know-Who gets here, our denouncers will be first in line to scrabble back begging for our protection.'

The two Snake dorm-mates sauntering in from their nightly toilette marked an end to the conversation, but Hermione sent Lisa a grateful smile before she got into bed and set up its surrounding smartglass screens.

Flamel flooed later that night, and Hermione tapped a noise cancellation setting into her bed-screens.

'Sir,' she nodded respectfully at the disembodied, hi-res head that floated above her soltab. 'Is everything all right?'

'I've been advised to hasten along our little project by some of the senior Order Members' was his way of reply. Hermione nodded, only wondering why he hadn't informed her sooner. 'A definitive deadline has been set for the end of the school year.'

'The end of the school year?!' Hermione exclaimed. 'Are they serious?'

'My initial reaction was similar to yours, but we have no choice but to attempt it.'

'That is ridiculous.'

'Do you believe yourself incapable?'

Hermione had to school herself very firmly to avoid coming across as peevish and smarting as she currently felt. 'No, I can do this. I can figure it out, but putting such a timeline on it, especially with my other subjects and school duties–'

'Ah yes, about that. I addressed concerns of that nature to the head professor, and you should be receiving an altered schedule soon, seeing as you haven't already.'

'What sort of altered?'

'You could say abridged.' Hermione didn't like the sound of that. 'Now you should get some rest, Miss Granger. Your health is of paramount importance. We will resume our lessons shortly.'

'Yes, sir, I will. Thank you.'

The message came through just before she turned the lights off, her "abridged" schedule, brutally truncated so that the bare minimum remained: a couple of the physical classes to ensure that she remained in peak fitness and all of the science-based lessons. Martial arts was cut, as was wilderness survival and healing, intelligence gathering and military science. Sabre-play and marksmanship were both halved.

'They're not looking for a soldier in me,' Hermione told herself. All the free time would no doubt be allocated to exercising her famed brain. 'Well so be it.' If there was one thing the Order could do, it was bring out the best in its students. And honing her intellect into an offensive weapon was their way of working on her. She nestled down to sleep. This was what they wanted from her? Very well. She'd give them their teleportation device before the year was out. Challenge most emphatically accepted.

…

Hermione was puzzling him. Drifting off during conversations and determinedly keeping her own company – it was as if she was reverting back to the solitary little girl she had once been, except without the abrasive veneer of confidence she'd worn to deflect cruel, childish judgement. Harry would often find her tucked away in a common room corner or library alcove, hunched over her soltab and looking at nothing, trapped in the confines of her own limitless mind.

And she was missing lessons. Hermione, _missing lessons_, without castigation. When he asked her what was wrong, she waved it away as if he was being foolish. That jarred as well. As brilliant as she had always been, she had never made him feel foolish before.

A nightmare of smoking fires and hands throttling him woke him while the sky was still dark, and concern for his best friend refused to let him sleep again, so he rose and donned some practical clothes.

Running away his troubles never failed to lift his spirits. The field was free and open to him; there was only one other student mad enough to be training at this hour. Harry let him have his space, focusing on his own course, but the figure seemed to recognise him even in this darkness and ran over.

'Eh, Harry, over here.'

'Cedric? You're up early.'

'Thought I'd get my run of the training field before everyone else woke up.'

The boy was shiny with the perspiration of a hard workout yet looked remarkably pleased with the turn of events.

'Good idea, thinking like a true champion.'

Cedric's grin was bright enough to make out despite the duskiness. 'Thanks, com. And I fig you're up because it's a Saviour thing to do.'

Harry shrugged.

'Want to spar?'

Harry nodded.

Cedric was a good competitor, and Harry didn't have to accommodate him as much as he would most other students in the school. He would certainly excel at the second stage of the Champions' Tournament. That being said, Harry pinned him an unflattering amount of times before the dogged Badger finally ceded the victory.

'One day,' Cedric vowed, rubbing his shoulder.

'Maybe,' Harry replied with a little, good-natured smirk.

'That's one mean look, hom!' Cedric said. 'Better be careful or I won't give you my belated Ex-Mass gift?'

'What? No, Ced, you didn't have to get me a gift.'

'Too late, I've decided to give it to you anyway. Stay there for about…twenty minutes. I'll be right back.'

He ran off to the castle before Harry could contest this. Cedric was back in fifteen, interrupting the smooth flow of kihon techniques the black-haired soldier had begun in his absence. Harry regarded Cedric curiously. In his hands, there was a box that had been tenderly wrapped then just as carefully unwrapped.

'What've you got there?' Harry had to ask.

Cedric showed Harry with a large grin on his face. 'Mother Diggory's homemade cookies!'

Harry gaped at them for an indulgent while before pushing the box away from him. 'Keep back.'

'Don't you want some?'

'Some? Not even one, _some_?' It had been so long since Harry had eaten something excessively sugared on Hogwarts grounds. The cooks only served such luxuries once a week, and even then Harry didn't partake. His will was stronger than the seductive glisten of sugary glazes. 'I couldn't.'

'Triple chocolate.'

'I can see that for myself!'

Cedric picked one up and slowly bit into it, his eyes fluttering with pleasure. 'Mmm.'

'You bloody spit,' Harry murmured.

'I see you at meals, you know, sticking right to your proteins and your vitamins even on dessert day. You never go easy on yourself, in any aspect of your life.'

Harry stayed strong, treating Cedric to the most imposing eyebrow manoeuvre in his repertoire. Noting his resilience, Cedric sighed. 'Ok, to be true, the reason I wanted to share these with you is because I feel dark about the whole Firewhiskey thing, you know, getting you in trouble with Professor Moody.'

'I wouldn't worry about it. I was bound to boil him up in some way that night.'

'Still, let me be sorry, yeah? I was a bag of crazy that night, shouldn't have dragged you down with me.'

It was Harry's turn to sigh. 'Give me a little bit,' Harry relented.

He didn't stop at a little bit. Half an hour later found them sprawling contentedly on the outskirts of the Forbidden Forest and nibbling on the fruits of Ms Diggory's fine baking.

'You are single-handedly losing the war for us,' Harry commented lightly, even as he polished off his fourth biscuit. 'By the time you're done with me, they'll have to roll me onto the battlefield.'

Cedric roared with laughter. 'You could still take out You-Know-Who. I fig you'd make a pretty good missile.'

'That shouldn't be funny,' Harry grinned. 'Why in Five do I choose to live under your corruptive influence?'

'Because you get food out of it?'

Harry shoved his shoulder.

'You have to admit it's nice though. Hiding away and eating cookies. It's like being a kid again.'

'That's what your childhood was like?' Harry asked. 'Must've been nice.'

Cedric sobered immediately. 'Sorry, that was…I…'

'Don't worry about it. I want to hear about your life as a kid.'

'What is there to say?' Cedric deflected. 'I had a mum, a dad. I did my chores, stayed in school; I had my moments but ultimately did all I could to make them proud. An average life, nothing to get excited about.'

'Sometimes average is nice, what I want to hear about,' Harry said. 'There's nothing average about you though, Ced.'

'That might have been the nicest thing anyone's said to me,' Cedric replied with a doctored tremble to his voice. Harry laughed. 'Would you tell me about your childhood, Harry? I mean, we all vaguely know what happened – they trained you hard – but we never learnt the finer details of how you got so…' Cedric mimed punching at an enemy in a wild, Niner rage.

Harry laughed. 'You wouldn't want to hear it.'

'Aw, come on, Harry. I want to know how you got so mortal at what you do.'

'Look, Ced, I'm not saying it to be modest or secretive. When I say you wouldn't want to hear it, you really wouldn't. It's not easy listening.'

'Maybe I'm made of sterner scrap than you think.'

Harry looked down at his hands, caught in the act of tearing up grass while his thoughts raged. 'All right,' he steeled himself, 'but you have to keep in mind that I haven't even talked about it with Ron or Hermione.'

'But they're your first coms.'

'Hermione would be…distressed by it, and Ron, well, we don't talk about things like that. Light things, he's the one I can talk about easy things with. So, like I was saying, I haven't told them any of this. Neville knows some, but that's because he was brought up in training too. Do you understand how much I'm trusting you right now?'

Cedric let out a giddy breath. 'A lot more than I first thought, I'm guessing.'

'Yeah, probably. Ok, I'm just going to talk. Don't interrupt.'

'Heard.'

Harry slid him a suspicious look. 'Cedric.'

'I whole swear, really!'

Swallowing, Harry nodded, his fingers going back to their aimless destruction of the grass before him. 'After my parents died, I was immediately placed into the care of the Order. Sirius, my godfather, was my next legal guardian, you see, and a member of the Order too. So they won all rights to me, brought me here and started training. I had many teachers, but Moody was the harshest, ex-military as he is. He wouldn't let me grieve. If he caught me crying over my parents, he'd work me extra hard in training the day after. That's the way he'd dealt with his trainee Aurors, he'd said. Work the weakness out of them.

'Sometimes, he'd train me until I could barely stand. Sirius intervened after the first few times. I was his kid, in his eyes, and he was the only one who seemed to notice the condition I was in. He wanted to take me away.' Harry smiled then, briefly, bitterly. 'We were going to escape to another settlement. Eight or Nine, he'd said. Nine was a stupid choice though. That would just be trading one war for another. Sirius was oblivious like that.

'Of course, he died when I was nine. That's when Moody really sank his claws in. No godfather to protect me now. I looked to Lupin, someone who'd been as close to my parents as Sirius had, voider enough to think that he'd step in. He had his own worries, whatever they were. He's a follower, completely in Dumbledore's palm. He stood by as I was dropped in Merlin-forsaken wilderness all over Five with limited supplies and a temperamental soltab and forced to navigate my way to civilisation. And when I was deprived of food and sleep then made to carry out missions, fight Order members and make strategic decisions for fake wars.

'And the torture. That's all I can really call it, torture. Dumbledore was against it at first. But Moody convinced him that in the event of capture, my endurance was everything. They dosed me with small amounts of Imperium until I could throw it off. When I could, they just increased the dose. All carefully measured, of course. They didn't want to fuck me up completely, as Imperium tends to do. They'd have no use for a broken Saviour. They did the same with Veritaserum. That was its own typa fun. Hours under interrogation, baring my soul. I had no secrets from them by the end, not that a prepubescent kid has much to hide. Well, unless it's from his friends I suppose. Ron and the other Weasleys were coming around all the time then – to keep me sane or young or in love with humanity, whatever Dumbledore said – but they learnt nothing.

'The injuries were hardest to hide. I've broken a few things over the years because, sure, Death Eaters might use Veritaserum to get Order secrets out of me, but they might also resort to a good Whole Earth beating. You know the usual: various limbs, a couple of ribs, my pelvis. My foot, that one was _mortal_, but I heal very quickly, apparently, so there's always that. That's it, I think, my stellar training in a byte. Glad you heard it?'

Cedric was eerily still beside him, his face in his hands and his fingers rubbing deep divots into the depressions around his eyes. When the older boy finally turned his abused eyes on him, Harry was struck by their greyness. Grey eyes always took him back to his parents' cottage, the day Voldemort had discovered them, and the follower who had inexplicably saved his life.

'I…Merlin, I don't even have the words.' Cedric looked so distraught that Harry regretted telling him anything. 'Nothing I could say is worthy of answering _that_. Not "I'm sorry" or "that's dark", just those _bastards_, Harry. Those fucking bastards.'

The heated curse jolted through Harry's system. It wasn't the language that shook him, but the pure rancour the mild-mannered Badger imbued it with. Harry hadn't realised how neatly Cedric always kept his hair until the boy's hands began to ravage it.

'You think I was complaining,' realised Harry. 'I wasn't. Don't be angry. Yes, the training was harsh, but it was necessary. Voldemort,' and Cedric was too torn up to flinch, 'was forged in the fire of adversity; so was I.'

'Listen to yourself. These people abused you for most of your life, and you say they were justified.'

'Yes, it was justified. It's war; you do all you can. We won't be able to defeat a man like him in half measures. And if I have to suffer for the rest of humanity, then so be it. Rather me than someone who isn't up to it. That's my fate anyway. I'm doing it for the greater good.'

'You're amazing, Harry,' Cedric breathed, his eyes wide with conflicted wonder. 'No one doubts that. Who could say something like that and mean it? You're bloody incredible, but are you ok?'

'Yeah, I'm all right. What sort of question is that, Ced?'

'Harry, look at me and tell me honestly that you're completely ok with all of this. Go on, please.'

Harry met his gaze defiantly, at least at first. Something about those concerned grey eyes whittled him down in a way that was soft but painful.

'They're right,' he told Cedric, or himself, 'they're right. They have to be right. This is all for the greater good. Merlin, I hate them. Sometimes I hate them more than I hate Voldemort, and he killed my _parents _right in front of me. But they're right. They have to be.'

Cedric acted on impulse, pulling the strange, sad warrior boy into a hug and clutching so tight that Harry wouldn't be able to throw him off. Only Harry didn't even try, much to Cedric's marked surprise. He simply sat there, stiff in Cedric's arms, before curling into the embrace. Harry supposed that this was the part where he should cry into the prefect's shoulder over all the wrongs committed against him, but his eyes, as ever, remained dry. So he sat there for a while, and Cedric allowed him, simply basking in the human contact he had so often been denied.

…

Cedric suspected that Professor Snape would be the right person to consult on this matter. There was much debate over who Dumbledore's true second was, he or Professor Moody, but the solar chemist struck Cedric as easier to get some civil reason out of…and less likely to ignite his volatile mood.

He approached the man at the end of a chemistry lesson, telling his friends to head on to lunch, and made his business clear. 'How do I make an appointment with Professor Dumbledore?'

Professor Snape raised one cool eyebrow, which would usually have the power to decimate Cedric's composure. 'The head professor makes a point of receiving any student who wishes to see him. However, he is also an extremely busy man, so an assessment of the urgency of your matters would be, ah, welcome.'

'It's important,' said Cedric. When the professor continued to look distinctly unimpressed, the Badger added. 'It's about Harry.'

The other eyebrow lifted to mirror its lofty counterpart, and yet the sallow man somehow managed to maintain his air of stoicism. He tapped on his soltab, waited for a minute at the most and looked up at Cedric again. 'He will see you now, apparently. I hope for your sake that this isn't a waste of his time.'

'I hope he doesn't consider what I have to say a waste of time either.'

Moody was the unwelcome surprise that waited on the other side of the headprof's door. His austere regard made Cedric want to retreat, but thoughts of his friend rooted him to the floor.

'Alastor, please excuse me, we will convene in a moment. First Mr Diggory, what do you have to say? Are you here to update me on that little task I set you at the beginning of the year?'

Cedric's blood boiled. That task had been another way to shape Harry, another way to rob all the genuineness from the teenager's life. And for a while, Cedric had been part of that. 'No, sir!' he snapped, before calming himself. 'I'm here about Harry's childhood, or lack of it, I should probably say.'

'What are you babbling about, boy?' Moody asked.

'I know what you did to him, all of you. I've heard all the ways you've hurt him.'

'He told _you_?'

'Yes,' Cedric retorted, smiling grimly at the straggly haired veteran. 'And I came here to ask you why I shouldn't report you to the Ministry for severe and prolonged abuse of a child, a freshly orphaned child who had no one else to look up to?'

'The brash on you, boy! You think you can blast in here and threaten us on business you know nothing about? To think that boy would complain about his position in the first place.'

'He wasn't complaining!' insisted Cedric. 'He defended the way you treated him.'

'Then you're fighting a losing battle, there. Even the person you're supporting is against you.'

'And you think that makes it right? Do either of you even think of him as a kid, no scrap that, a human?'

Cedric would have welcomed an overspill of the rage that was reddening Moody's face, but Dumbledore headed him off. 'Alastor, if I may talk to young Mr Diggory alone.'

The man grunted his disapproval, but it was clear that the headprof held a power over him that was more than bureaucratic. He nodded and left Cedric with the more reasonable, the more dangerous, man. Reason had the power to diffuse even the most righteous anger, and false reason only added insult to that injury. Cedric had no desire to yield before the man's sophistry.

'Mr Diggory–'

'Tell me why I should listen to anything you have to say.'

The man paused, graciously, making a petulant boy of him. 'While I'm heartened by the loyalty you show towards Harry, I must request that you do not let it hinder your judgement…or your conduct. Let's discuss this as respectable men.'

'All right, sir,' was Cedric's taut reply. Following Dumbledore's gesture, Cedric took the seat opposite him.

'You are usually such a polite, personable young man.'

Cedric said nothing, but his fingers tapped out a brusque retort on the armrests of his chair.

Dumbledore sighed the wistful, I-was-young-once sigh. Due to form, he went on to say: 'I was a lot like you when I was your age. I was kind to my fellows; I showed respect where it was due. I had a strong belief in justice. Caring – deeply – for someone can change you, and not always for the better. It can blind you to the facts, all sense of reason, and engender enmity towards those who try to impart them.'

There it was. "Reason". 'With all due respect, sir,' and Cedric wanted to laugh at the words that had just slipped from his mouth, 'I don't know what happened to you to make you say that, but this is different. Even an objective person could look at the situation and see how dark it is.'

'Perhaps, but would that person be looking at the atom or the object?'

'Pardon?'

'Would they be looking solely at the events of Harry's training, or would they look further to the widespread impact it has and will have on ES-5 and beyond?' Another world-weary sigh. The man was outstanding at those. He got the balance between gravitas and fragility just right. 'I will be the first to acknowledge that what we have done to Harry was difficult for us all. He was always a bright little boy, but we pushed him to become more than that. He couldn't just be bright, he had to outshine anyone that has ever gone before. He had to blaze in glory for everyone to see and eclipse the Dark Lord's might. Does he?'

'Yes,' said Cedric without pause.

'And do you admire him, the man he is sure to become?'

'I wouldn't be here if I didn't.'

'Do you believe that he will be victorious against the Dark Lord?'

'Yes.'

'And can you honestly tell me that he would be the Harry you believe in without the manner of training he underwent as a child?'

Cedric was quiet for too long. 'Well, we can't know that,' he blustered as if loudness could negate the length of his faltering. 'Who knows? Maybe he could have turned out the same if you hadn't forced illegal substances down him or left him to fend for himself in the wilderness.'

'Perhaps he could, but we'll never know. We didn't know then, either, what would be too much or too little. We were not so conscious of breaking him as of leaving him breakable and letting the Dark Lord finish the task. Would you take the chance of not making him strong enough? When faced with the survival of your planet, perhaps humanity as we know it, would you?'

This was what Cedric had been afraid of. The reason nullifying the rage. He struggled against it. 'You can't – I…I know, Harry's pain to save billions of others,' said Cedric, 'but it's still a life, a childhood.'

'Yes, Mr Diggory, it is "wrong", extremely wrong. But when you find yourself having to make a decision where every possible solution is wrong, what do you do then?' He answered before Cedric could even think of a reply. 'Choose the least of the evils.'

'The most pragmatic failsafe, you mean.'

'Yes, that as well. I do not claim to be proud of our choice – I would not be content with whichever meagre one we'd opted for – however, I stand by it. There were so many times when I thought he would break, and yet he rose stronger than ever before. And when war arrives, he will continue in this manner. It is the way he lives now. He is, in all intents and purposes, the truest Phoenix of us all.

'Do you still wish to report us to the Ministry, Mr Diggory?'

Cedric didn't know what he wished anymore. 'No, any sort of vengeance is Harry's right, not mine. After he's finished You-Know-Who, he can decide what to do. Until then he probably needs you to stick about, make sure all the shi– "training" you put him through was worth it.'

'Thank you, Mr Diggory.'

'Thank you, sir.' The Badger Prefect stood as soon as the head professor nodded his permission and went to leave.

'Mr Diggory,' Dumbledore said to his retreating back. 'If it's any consolation to you, Lord Voldemort cannot do anything to Harry that we haven't already.'

'Thank you, sir,' Cedric repeated numbly before rushing out of the door.

As soon as the young Badger had left, Albus sagged in his seat the way a man his age could without censure. When had he lost the ability to say all of the right things? Alastor was most likely waiting to be called in so that they could resume their discussion. But Albus didn't floo on him, not yet.

Instead, he stood and picked up one of the silver trinkets that lined his desk like little phalanxes of soldiers. It appeared to be an aberrantly mundane cigarette lighter, but one click of it lifted the perpetual hologram that masked the square hole in the shelving to his right and made it look like ordinary wall. Albus walked over and placed his hand on the metal panel the disabled hologram had revealed, and it retracted after identifying his touch.

Many would struggle to find any commercial value in the contents of Albus's safe. Perhaps there was nothing more than sentiment to the photo loop of a blonde, smiling girl or the lock of golden hair – a different shade to the girl's – tenderly preserved in a glass-fronted box. But the Pensieve stowed at the back – thick with secrets, plots and discarded shames – was something else.

Albus pulled it towards him, connected its feeder tube to his temple and remembered.

In Albus's first recollections of Harry, the boy was newly born, tiny in his mother's arms. Albus remembered the way the Potters' radiant joy had dimmed as he approached them. James stepped forward with a terse smile, a sentinel who assumed his role with deadly seriousness. Lily was more subtle, but the flash of fear in her eyes was hard to miss, as was the way she clutched her son closer to her chest.

'Congratulations,' he told them anyway, 'I'm told he's a healthy boy, strong.'

James nodded silently; Lily kissed the crown of Harry's tufty little head.

Albus cleared his throat and continued. 'Young Neville also appears to be doing well.'

James nodded again, drifting closer to his wife and squeezing her shoulders. She leaned into him without reservation. Albus couldn't remember when they had become such a unified force, thoughts of the inharmonious start to their marriage still prevalent in his mind.

'I suppose it will only be a matter of time before it becomes apparent which child is the prophesied one.'

'Please, Albus,' said Lily quickly. 'Not today, not now.'

'I…of course, forgive me. That was inopportunely mentioned.'

He turned slightly and saw Sirius, Remus and Peter approaching: infinitely more welcome faces to the Potter clan.

'Well, I'll leave you in the company of better men for the occasion.'

The Potters' protests were half-hearted at best. Albus didn't fail to notice that their tension melted away as he did. He would leave them to their dear school friends. They were excitement and adoration; they belonged to this scene of newborn bliss. Albus was duty and obligation, an uninvited reminder that Fate marched on.

The next memory Albus wanted to quarantine was of a two-year-old Harry, a little, loud hurricane of a boy that liked to swing on his father's legs.

'How is he?' he remembered asking Lily in the last of the few times he visited their cottage hideaway.

'He's fine, just a normal two-year-old boy.' Did he mishear her emphasise the word normal? 'A byte lonely, though, ever since Alice stopped visiting with little Neville. The…well, the whole issue with…she found it difficult to see my son, our sons together.'

Albus nodded gravely. 'May I see him?'

'He's fine, nothing's changed since the last time you saw him.'

'Lily, please. The time for objection has passed. You agreed to have him knowing the high probability that he would be the prophesied vanquisher of the Dark Lord. You were aware of the risks and accepted them.'

'Yes,' said Lily, 'yes I know, but…'

He knew what she was trying to voice. They, the young, impressionable Order initiates they had been, had easily promised away the life of an unborn foetus. Barely adults, they hadn't understood how precious that life would become until it had arrived in theirs.

'He's in the garden,' she told him flatly.

The boy he found there was too exuberant, too effervescent, alternately chasing his father and a frantic chocolate Labrador. Albus wanted to cup the memory in his hands, trap it like a firefly, so that Harry could have stayed that vibrant child forever. When James saw Albus, he tried to keep Harry behind his legs, but the boy ducked through and ran up.

'Hello,' he said with a little laugh.

Albus knelt before him. 'What's so funny, young Harry?'

Harry tapped his chin and giggled again.

'He appears to be laughing at my beard,' he informed the parents.

Without invitation, probably because two year olds had no concept of what one was, the boy sank a fist into the silver locks, Lily's intelligent eyes wide in his face. 'Fluffy!' he declared, with a disarming grin that would become fewer and farther between as the years took their toll.

'Yes, quite,' Albus agreed. He remembered coming to adore Harry in that moment. That still hadn't saved him.

The next memory really gnawed at his heart. It was the first time Harry had collapsed during training, and the last, Albus had hoped. Alastor and Remus had sat with him for the whole duration of his shattered oblivion.

'I pushed him too far.'

'Alastor.'

'No, I'll admit when I'm wrong, and I pushed the boy too far. This training, it's not for kids. I wouldn't give some of this scrap to Auror recruits.' They looked to where his too-small, scruffy head poked up from beneath the sheets, his brows furrowed in defence from the nightmares plaguing his mind. 'How long will he hold up? How much do we hurt him before it's too much? I don't think he can take much more, Albus.'

'He's strong. There's no other way he could be.'

'And if I can't take any more, of doing this to him, of being the Merlin-blasted Dark Lord surrogate forcing him into excellence?'

Albus sighed. 'We must continue. As much as we despise it, Harry isn't our cause, the world is. One boy, although we care for him, does not come before the rest of humanity.'

'You can say that with the wee boy lying fused out right in front of you?'

'Indeed, to see him like this is difficult for us all. But if Harry himself is prepared to gift his spirit to the greater good, then who are we to bemoan his situation?'

'Do you know what he shouted at me, minutes before he blacked out? "You're just like him!" he said. Just like Voldemort, he meant. But he didn't just mean me, he meant all of us.'

'He's young, was probably in a mood. He knows why he's doing this. He knows who the real enemy is.'

'I should hope so,' said Moody, 'because Merlin save us if he grows into even half the man I think he'll be and decides that "like Voldemort" is grounds enough to annihilate us all.'

'He wouldn't, Alastor, he's a good boy.'

'Yes, but we're not good men.'

No, Alastor had been wrong. They were good men. Worse men, weaker men, would have crumbled by now. They would have forgotten the Earth Settlements in the face of one crying child and congratulated themselves over this aversion of immediate suffering. Albus had not been weak.

But sometimes a creeping recollection of a forlorn little messy-haired boy made him feel otherwise. _'He wants me…to die?'_ he'd murmur with glistening, green eyes. '_But why?_'

Albus could never recall what he'd said in reply, but it was likely more of an answer than he had now. If Albus had been wrong, if he had truly failed in creating a suitable Saviour, then he'd compromised his morality for nothing.

Albus disconnected the tube and all Harry-themed qualms swirled into obscurity.

…

'Truly well-manoeuvred, Draco,' proclaimed Slughorn as the leering Snake stood from the battle simulator and retook the seat ensconced by his housemates.

Harry wordlessly looked to Ron who shrugged and whispered: 'He's good. Nice use of Slytherin's Reversal to turn the enemy's attempt at envelopment back on them. But if he'd looked ahead and read the envelopment manoeuvre earlier, he could've split his force, used his reserves to flank and saved a lot of time and casualties.'

'Sounds about right,' Harry said with a small grin. Their attention snapped back to their teacher to find that he was saying what Ron had already summarised.

'You need to read the field, Draco, anticipate the enemy. Your reaction once seemingly enveloped was excellent, but you could have avoided it altogether, preserved both time and lives. Still, stellar work, m'boy. Ten points to the Snakes.'

Ron grunted at this. It was no secret that Slughorn favoured the green house, filled with Forebear heirs and children to the political elite. They formed the majority of the fourth year class; the Ravens completing the equation. Ron, the token Lion was often passed over, having to outwardly content himself by observing.

But Harry hadn't unearthed those rare battle vids for a shrinking bystander, so when Slughorn called for the next contender, Harry coughed.

'Harry, m'boy! Up you come.'

'Actually, I think Ron would like a turn.'

'Harry!' Ron hissed.

'You reckon you can do better than Malfoy, then do better than Malfoy,' Harry retorted in a similar tone.

'Up you get, er, Rupert.'

'Ron,' Harry said again firmly.

Staggering to his feet, Ron teetered to the front of the class, the Snakes sneering as he made his way past. He sat with a thump at the holo table and waited for the computer to load a unique setup. In seconds, the white tabletop became a miniaturised mountainous terrain swathed in lush greenery, his army of blinking white dots cradled by the bases of numerous knolls, his view of the opposing army (red dots) partially obscured by many more.

The sim was meant to replicate a practising battle tactician's experience in every way. They were kept away from the main battle, their visuals fed to them by multiple camera drones the size of snitches and their commands issued through the earpieces that each soldier wore. Ron took things like a chess game, measuredly flicking between the aerial camera feeds and assessing both landscape and army positions.

'Before we all die, Weasley,' Malfoy called out.

Apart from a faint reddening of Ron's ears, the barb did no damage. He switched into action. Ron portioned off his army into their pre-programmed subgroups, dividing up their audio transmission feeds accordingly, one channel per platoon. He was vaguely aware of Slughorn's thoughtful huff from behind him.

Then he singled out platoons one and two, pressed his intercom and began to talk. The class watched in floored silence as he began to mobilise his army, the subgroups dribbling through the hills like tributaries and taking the opposition by surprise. Of course, with the sheer amount of units to keep track of and a lack of rational human subordinates to take command of each, Ron was slightly overwhelmed. Mistakes were made; avoidable deaths occurred, but his resulting victory was undisputed, both in and out-sim.

'That was quite something, Ron,' said Slughorn quietly.

…

'Thirty frickin' points to the Lions!' Ron crowed as he and Harry sauntered down the passage. 'That boiled up Malfoy and his Snaky commies. We had ourselves some serpent stew!'

'You're really improving as a tactician,' Harry nodded with a proud grin. Harry really couldn't wait to see him at work in the third stage of the tournament, provided he made it through the second round. Of course he'd make it through the second round.

'It's those battle vids, com! I've been watching them all the time. There's some _dosed_ stuff in there, whole mental. Merlin, Harry you've gotta be the champest first com in the whole ES to source them for me.'

'No problem. Glad they helped.' By that point, Harry's smile had gone supernova. 'I fig you could be one of the military greats, so I wanted to nudge you along.'

'You'd better shut up before I bloody hug you in front of this whole corridor.'

Harry laughed. In all honesty, he was rather partial to hugging his friends. He liked to think he was making up for lost childhood time.

'I'm being serious. When I'm in charge of all this, I want you there, not just as a tactician but as a member of all my strategy meetings.'

Ron's ears were red again, closely followed by his cheeks. 'What do you think Dumbledore would have to say on all that?'

'Come on, this is the Beard we're talking about. He can see a smart decision when it's presented to him, and making you part of my advisory team is a smart decision.'

It was Ron's turn to laugh. 'Wait a minute, the Beard?'

'Yeah,' Harry frowned, 'that's what everyone calls him, right? The Beard.'

'I've never heard any hom call him the Beard.'

'I've heard differently.'

'That's voider talk. Name one other person who calls him the Beard, Harry.'

Harry stopped in his tracks when he saw Cedric walking towards them, looking oddly subdued, especially now Harry was more intimately acquainted with his vitality. He fell heavily onto each step, hands in pockets, eyes centred on the floor. Harry had to call out to him to get his attention.

'Everything all right, Ced?'

The boy started at the voice, took one look at its owner and offered him a wounded smile, one that true cheerfulness limped along behind, never quite catching up.

'Hey, Harry. Yeah, I'm all right. What about you, are you…ok?'

Merlin, he was still in a mess over Harry's training, wasn't he? He should have kept quiet.

'I'm good, ok Ced? I'm fine. Look, everything's ok.'

Cedric seemed to take heart from this, clapping a hand on Harry's shoulder and holding on for longer than Ron thought necessary. 'Ok, I'm glad. See you about.'

Harry nodded with a 'see you' of his own and watched the prefect walk away.

'What in Five was all that about?'

Harry shrugged and continued walking. Ron fell into step beside him, finding the silence inflammatory. 'Actually, what in Five's happening with you and Diggory in general? I thought he was just helping you with Cho, but then she turned out a bitch. How come he's still hovering around you all the time?'

'He's not hovering, we're friends,' Harry said with wry amusement. 'Turns out we had more in common than just Cho. Jealous, Ron?'

'Pfft, as if.'

'All right, no need for the vehemence. You sure know how to make a hom cry.'

They paused outside their common room, laughing their way into silence. Out of nowhere, Ron slung an arm around his shoulder and pulled him into a brief, fierce hug.

'What in Five, Ron?'

'We're still first coms, yeah? Diggorys can come and go, but we're still Harry and Ron.'

'Diggorys can…' Harry dissolved in chuckles only to see earnestness in his best friend's eyes. 'Always, Harry and Ron.'

'Good,' said Ron, punching his shoulder to pass the moment.

'Ow.'

'Soldier up, Golden Boy.'

'Won-Won!' An incrementally familiar voice greeted their entrance to the common room.

'Won-Won?' Harry choked. 'Is she talking to you?'

'Coming, Lavender.' The girl in question stopped short of barrelling into them and glared until he corrected his apparent error. 'I mean, coming…er, Lav-Lav."'

Harry took a deep breath and turned away to compose himself. 'Who needs to soldier up, Ron?' he murmured into his palm.

'Shut up,' said Ron before letting Lavender lead him away.

Harry was soon engaged by two other Weasleys, the twins snickering madly as they ran and ducked inexplicably behind him.

'What now?'

'Ssh, you'll see!' Fred whispered excitedly.

The armistice of the common room was disrupted by a remarkable crack and a pillar of red smoke. Those unfortunate students in its vicinity sprang back, rubricated and screaming. Then another plume of smoke erupted, and another, until the whole room was a billowing cloud of red.

'Are those from the obstacle course?!' Harry demanded, though he already knew the answer. 'How on Five did you get hold of them?'

'That, dear Harry, is for us to know…'

'And you to – look out!'

Hermione, dyed red from head to toe emerged from the rosy smog in a stormy mood. 'Fred and George Weasley! What in Merlin and all the Saints' names is this scrap about?'

'Marking the territory,' said George.

'Lions rule,' Fred added.

'This isn't even your common room!' Hermione ranted.

'She's got a point there,' Harry said.

Hermione sighed. 'If you put half the effort into your studies as you did into your pranking, imagine what you could do.'

George looked thoughtfully at his twin. 'And interesting proposition, Gred.'

'Indeed, Forge.'

'We'll consider it…later.'

They departed in a massive hurry.

'_How_ did they get those mines? I'm sure we sent them all back.'

'Nothing's an obstacle to them in the formulation of a prank,' Hermione replied, sounding profoundly tired. She ran her hands through grizzled, red-streaked hair. 'Oh damn it. Damn it, damn it, Merlin damn it!'

'Er, Hermione? Did that prank annoy you that much or has something else happened?'

She looked up at him, her eyes wide, almost crazed, and startlingly brown amongst all the red. 'I need to get out of here. Don't know what else I can do. There's something I have to do and it's slowly jacking my brain.'

'Library?' Harry offered gently.

Pausing, she tried to smooth her hair back into place. 'Yes, yes of course. I'm being overly dramatic. Would you give me a few minutes?'

Ten minutes later, they were sitting in Hermione's favourite library alcove, encircled by walls of privatised launchbooks which, when scanned with a soltab, yielded content that wasn't even available on the all-encompassing Net. The only library area that trumped this place in Hermione's eyes was the restricted section, where antique, Whole Earth, paper-based books lay in protective sleeves.

It was here – still red all over (the librarian had not been pleased) but a lot more at ease – that Hermione confessed the events of her life this term.

'_Teleportation?_' Harry whispered._ '_Merlin, I know you're brilliant, but is that even possible?'

'Well I know I won't be able to rest until it is.' She swiped some of the salve Harry had gifted her for Ex-Mass and dabbed it on both temples, relishing the coolness.

'Why teleportation?'

She couldn't tell him the reason. Mostly because she didn't know, but the part she did she couldn't bear to say to him. 'I have no idea. All I know is that I'm supposed to be collaborating with Ministry Unspeakables on it, but so far we've had…differing viewpoints on how to proceed.'

'The Ministry, Unspeakables, why?'

'Again, I don't know. They're putting pressure on me to yield results though.'

'They?'

'Professor Dumbledore and whoever else he makes his decisions with.'

'Bloody hell. Teleportation. You'll fig it, Hermione. You always do.'

'This time I'm at a loss. We keep going round in the same circles. Wormholes this, wormholes that. I can't help but think there's another way to do it.'

'Like what?'

'Nothing worth hypothesising yet. Everything I say gets shot down as ludicrous by those righteous Unspeakables, "experts in their fields".'

'But there's something there,' Harry insisted. 'Some sort of idea. Go on, say it. You don't have to worry about it sounding ludicrous. It'll probably sound ingenious to me.'

'All right,' she leant back in her chair and allowed him a slow smile, 'so I think we should discard wormholes completely. If there was just some way to just, well, dematerialise someone somewhere and materialise them somewhere else. I was looking at atomiser guns. You know the types they use on unrecyclable waste and other mundane things no one wants to see anymore to reduce them to basic particles, but the problem would be transmitting those particles to the desired destination without killing the teleported person.'

'So you'd have to find a way to reassemble that person quickly, so there isn't too much of a disruption to their vitals or brain impulses.'

Now Hermione's smile was approving. 'Yes, exactly.'

'So an instantaneous teleportation would be best, like the Net.'

'Say that again.'

'The Net? Like data and scrap like that.'

'Harry!' Hermione seized his shoulders with atypical fervour. 'Oh Merlin, Harry!'

'Yes?'

'The Net? Do you know how the Net transmits data?'

'Haven't really thought about it to be honest.'

'Electromagnetic waves, encoded at one end and decoded at the other. It's fast, light-speed. And just supposing there was a way to atomise someone and direct the matter particles somehow. I mean, obviously not with a wave. Of course it would just pass through. Merlin! Force carrier particles!'

Harry remained politely silent.

'Simply put, force carriers are particles exchanged between two matter particles that affect both parties, usually creating an attraction or a repulsion between them – like magnets. So if you think of a force such as gravity that roots us to these chairs. It's the matter that makes up us and the chairs exchanging force carrier particles that makes us attract each other, so we don't float away from each other. All the while, there are similar carrier particles that cause repulsion to stop us falling through our seats.'

'Ok,' said Harry after thinking a while.

'Electromagnetism, the carrier particles for those are photons. Photons: those are quanta, I mean, elementary particles of–'

'Light, yes. Don't bother explaining everything to me, Hermione. Just think.'

'I think that could be the key, electromagnetism. I'd have to work with two bases to localise the teleportation, linked in some sort of electromagnetic field so strong it would attract the atomised matter of the teleported subject from the first location to the second. It would be close to instantaneous. Yes, and the atomiser gun uses electromagnetism to repel every particle from each other, causing them to scatter. Possibly painful, but it shouldn't last for longer than a millisecond. I'd just have to make sure there was enough residual electromagnetic force to bind all the atoms back together again. But how to ensure the atoms were reassembled in the exact same order.

'I'd need to develop some sort of algorithm. It could be like Net data, encoded and decoded. I'd find some way to map the original structure of atoms in the subject, transport that data from base to base. That part's still hazy. Would Flamel accept that?'

Hermione had reached a lull, so Harry allowed himself to prod. 'Flamel, as in Nicolas Flamel?'

'Yes, him.'

'Ok, I'm just going to accept this craziness. And do you think there are computers out there fast enough to deal with all of this algorithm and mapping business within the milliseconds you're planning for this teleportation to take?'

'I think so.' Hermione cupped her red hands in front of her red face. 'Merlin, I really think so. I think I'm one step closer to making this happen. Oh, Harry!'

Harry fell back as she flung herself at him, arms curling around his neck. Vaguely aware and wholly dismissive of the red that was rubbing off on his own skin and clothes, Harry hugged her back, laughing into her shoulder.

'Thank you,' Hermione whispered.

'It was all you, 'Mione. I couldn't explain what I did if I tried.'

Hermione sat back and smiled at him fondly. 'You listened.'

Harry returned the gesture. 'It's the only thing I can do when you're reeling off your dazzling science-speak.'

After swatting at his head, she tapped into her soltab with shaky hands. 'I've got to get this down, start working this out. I need something solid if I want to convince Flamel.'

'You will. You've got this, Hermione.'

Harry thought he could bask in the smile she gave him for hours.

It took a couple of weeks for a substantial body of workings to form on her soltab, but when they did, Hermione rushed them to the next session with Flamel that she had. She watched him with ill-disguised anxiety as he scrolled through her work, treating it all with a guarded, circumspect eye. Finally, after what felt like hours but was actually eleven minutes and thirty three seconds (Hermione had been counting), he said: 'This could be a solution. Of course it needs a great deal of work.'

'Of course!' Hermione chipped in immediately.

'And the solution would be a lot less flexible in terms of teleportation location. Choices would be limited to wherever the corresponding electromagnetic base was positioned. But as an idea, it has a greater probability of success than anything that has previously been considered.'

_There_, Hermione thought to herself, _I can do it. I am good enough!_ But she quickly dispensed with that. The work was only beginning. She would reserve all celebration for the completion of her task.

'Well, the only thing to do now is to perfect your blueprints and start building.'

'What, now?'

'Yes, Miss Granger. The urgency of the assignment hasn't alleviated because you've made a little breakthrough. We must have a finished product as soon as possible.'

_Little breakthrough?_ Hermione's thoughts seethed. _It's the best you've got._

As if sensing her chagrin, Flamel softened. 'Here, I will help you. We will build it together.'

…

As the second task of the Champions' Tournament drew nearer, a quiver of nauseated excitement ran through the school. What was the task? Who would win? And, most importantly, what was the Ministry planning to do about it?

Mostly nothing, it turned out to the conflicted disappointment of the student body. It wasn't that they welcomed Ministry retaliation, but they had expected a greater opposition from the multi-faceted, omnipotent government that held monopoly over the planetary population. It was meant to be the most powerful organisation in the whole ES as the other planets had long ago fragmented into a collage of nations (and interminable war, in the case of ES-9). ES-5 was a collection of states, all ruled by poorly disguised subsets and stemlets of the big M.

On the day itself, a fifty-strong force of Aurors (not the crimson peacekeeping branch but the green-clad military faction that many of the Order had once belonged to) came to stand vigil on the event and appease the fears of the more gullible parents. Harry and the other students were not fooled. The military had regressed in the decade of inaction that had followed Voldemort's disappearance. Being an Auror soldier was now a part-time occupation, a little-thought-about alter-ego, something to be juggled alongside the more mundane careers they defined themselves by.

Harry could see it in their bearing. Slight discrepancies in their stances hinting towards boredom and lack of discipline, wandering eyes, the inordinate amount of time they spent sneaking glances at the purported Saviour of the world. Peacetime did not do the defences of this planet well. Harry liked to think that the Order students showed these "soldiers" how to comport themselves as they formation marched that morning for parents and Ministry officials.

After this controlled display of superior training, their drillmaster (Moody) released them and they filed up into the arena seats. The venue was arranged in a ring of staggered bleachers this time, offering a view of the craggy battleground, a hundred feet in diameter.

Harry himself led the twenty-four remaining champions to the warmup tents.

Fred and George Weasley were getting remarkably good at sneaking up on him. If Harry gave them a couple more years, they might even catch him by surprise. Bidding the Champions to slip through the tent's smartglass walls, he turned to address them.

'What are you two doing back here? I've got to brief the Champions for the task.'

Fred started. 'We just think you should know something–'

'About Dumbledore,' George concluded.

'What about him?' As frivolous as the twins could be, they had a prankster's skill at perceiving the untouchable moments of true seriousness.

'We know the parents have been pushing the Ministry to interfere here for quite some time.'

'And Dumbledore's been telling you that he'd be powerless against them when they finally gave in to public demands, right?'

'How did you–?'

'We figged that was the sort of thing a consummate chessmaster like him would say. But that's not the main issue here, is it? The real question is why haven't they acted yet? Let's be honest, we were all anticipating today, and not just because we wanted to see what tasks our Champions would be completing.'

'Not that we're trying to belittle your tournament,' George inserted hastily. 'Rousing stuff.'

'Yeah, so when all they did was call in a few scrappy Auror spits…'

'Fifty of their finest soldiers,' Harry interceded.

'Which still makes them scrappy Auror spits. Come on, Harry, you saw them too. The voiders could barely stand straight. And it's pretty obvious that they're just for show because what could they do if another Pucey happens? If the Ministry really wanted to exercise the power they have, they'd shut down the tournament and maybe the school if the fancy took them.'

'But they haven't,' added George.

'What do you think that means?'

'You tell me.'

'They're bought off somehow. It's in their best interests to keep the school running.'

'Speculation,' Harry said. 'And even if they were, for some reason, invested in us despite the fact that they're the main people insisting we don't have a cause, what does this have to do with Dumbledore?'

'Patience, young Harry. We're getting to that part.'

'With more pacing and less intrigue, please.'

'Ok, so this morning Fred and I were testing out some surveillance tech we…came across in Filch's apprehended stash of prohibited items.'

'Wait, you _found_ where the school keeps all the security liabilities it jacks off the students?'

'Yeah, like three years ago,' Fred brushed off. 'We sneak a byte off the more interesting scrap out before incineration. So we were testing out the tech in…'

'We might as well tell him. The second floor girls' bathroom.'

'What? Why?!'

'No cameras or anything! Just bugging devices. It's the hub of girl gossip around these parts. Angelina and Georgie here, well, had a rather successful night at the Winter Dance aside from the fake Death Eater scam and rumours were circulating about it. We just wanted to know what they were saying.

'So we sat around, waiting to see if any slack-mouthed chatterers would visit before today's event. Nothing notable at first: what the task would be, what the Ministry was up to, whether Sally-Anne Perks' Gregorovitch daggers were real or not. There was a very heated debate about who was hotter out of you and Diggory. Results were inconclusive.'

'But then guess who came in after all that? Dumbledore and Crouch.'

'The headprof of the school and a Ministry representative in a girls' toilet?'

'Yep, that's right. They were already in the middle of a discussion. We reckon Crouch started mouthing off in the corridor and Dumbledore made them duck into the closest empty space that they could.'

'What did they say?'

'We've got the recording right here.'

George retrieved a slim, silver necklace from his pocket, adorned with a large, emerald centrepiece.

'Who owned this before it was apprehended?'

'No idea. But seeing as the actual bugs were matching earrings, it was probably some rich girl with an eye for fashion,' George offered semi-seriously.

He pressed the jewel and the necklace projected two familiar voices with perfect clarity.

'–is the meaning of this, Albus? I refuse to discuss this with you in a school toilet.'

'Bartemius, please remain calm. You are acting most irrationally, and I did not want to imperil either of our public faces.'

'Calm? You want me to remain calm. I can't, not when faced with an immoral man who lies and bribes his way to power.'

'I have no idea of what you're talking about.'

'I appealed for justice; I went to the First Minister myself with tales of these child soldiers, fighting like mad animals. He waved me away, told me that you are doing nothing implicitly wrong. Apparently, you've long been a good friend to the Ministry. Tell me, what exactly have you done for him to say as such?'

'I'm sure you recall Grindewald as well as the next–'

'I know they've been paying you.'

There was a measured silence in which even Harry held his breath.

Crouch continued. 'I managed to get hold of the Ministry expenditure accounts for the last five years. Surprisingly difficult, considering my station, but they were worth the find. They say everything in this school was bought by the Ministry.'

A tired sigh, Dumbledore's favourite defence, prefaced contrastingly wakeful words. 'And I'm sure you brought these to the First Minister and he advised you to keep the information to yourself.'

'How did you know?'

'Because he told me himself. I do the same as he did and warn you to keep the subject closed and also to resist further investigation into the matter. It does not concern you.'

'It does. Justice concerns me, especially avoidance of it. You dodge parental allegations, submitting your students to dangerous activity all while your Gringotts fills with taxpayer galleons. It isn't right.'

Dumbledore's voice lowered to a hiss that Harry had no idea he was capable of. 'You would do well to tread carefully now, Bartemius. If making an enemy of me and my Order isn't enough of a deterrent, the First Minister could make it very difficult for you to continue dispensing "justice". You have my complete confidence that he will back my cause over yours. Now I suggest that you shut up, head out and do the job the Ministry assigned you to do. Nothing more.'

George ended the recording to save them from a good minute or two of Crouch's enraged spluttering.

'What the actual hell?' demanded Harry. 'When did Dumbledore start threatening Ministry officials in student toilets?'

'I know, we didn't believe it when we were listening in.'

'And the Ministry. They denounce us in public then pay us in secret? Nothing adds up.' Fred and George watched indulgently as a tricky gleam lit Harry's eyes. 'Do you two reckon you can investigate further?'

'Who do you think you're talking to?!' they exclaimed together.

'All right, wrong question. Do you want to investigate further?'

'We're just as interested by this as you are.'

'Consider it done!'

Harry grinned at them. 'Just be careful about it. I didn't know Dumbledore could sound so…cutthroat until today. Whatever this deal between him and the First Minister is, sounds like he'd murder to keep it underground.'

'Uncover the deal, don't get caught. Heard, Harry!'

'We'll get to the bottom of this.'

With matching purposeful swaggers, Harry's pair of tricksters walked back to the arena. Harry hurriedly slipped into the warm-up tent. 'At ease,' he insisted when they straightened at his arrival. 'Sorry for the delay,' he said as he passed through the crowds, patting backs and touching shoulders on his way to the unofficial front of the congregation.

'The task today,' he continued quickly, forcing all thoughts on Dumbledore's machinations from his mind, 'is one-to-one combat to the theoretical death. Your sabres are the only weapons permitted, though you may use whatever is available in your environment to gain the advantage. You may notice that something is different about your practical wear. They've been fitted with sensor pads; not only will they register if your opponent gives you a fatal injury, they'll armour you completely against it. Complete safety is assured,' Harry affirmed.

'All right, your opponent will be randomly selected and you'll be called up in pairs as the contest goes along. Be lucky and fight well.'

Cho tried to head Harry off as he moved to exit, eyes brimming with abject apologies. Harry liked to think that he no longer felt anything for her, but he didn't relish the idea of speaking to her again.

An arm around his shoulders swept him out of her trajectory, and Harry breathed a sigh of relief when he saw whom it belonged to.

'Ced, they should call you the Saviour.'

Cedric laughed. 'Nah, I think we're doing all right with you.'

'Feeling confident?'

'Reasonably.'

'So very, then.'

Cedric laughed again. 'You got me.'

'I should probably go.'

'Probably.'

They stopped at an entrance to the tent, looking expectantly at each other. 'Er, so be lucky, I fig.'

'Thanks, Harry.'

Briefly, the boys caught teary, black eyes watching them, an incentive for Harry to leave. Neither saw the hard, blue eyes also watching, skewering the back of Cedric's head with open malice.

…

The Order students could _fight_. Yes, Harry knew that was the product of training daily, but the mechanics of the idea meant nothing when Neville was demonstrating how to demolish an opponent better than an edubook, Angelina was bringing down a boy twice her size and McLaggen was defeating Cho with surprising delicacy and respect.

Fate was at its most perverse when it chose Ron and Cedric to meet in the final battle of the day. Harry tensed in his seat of distinction, torn. The audience were in a similar position, cheering equally for the Heroic Lion and the Badger Ace.

They circled each other long after the klaxon heralded the start of their match, Ron pale and tight-lipped, Cedric steady and unruffled. Ron was thinking ahead, Harry knew, mapping out different routes into the future. Cedric was waiting for an attack, as he usually did. Ron would definitely strike first, to direct the conflict along a more favourable path.

Ron, tall for fifteen as he was, still fell short of Cedric's height, so he dealt his adversary a tricky bout of sabre undercuts that Cedric managed to deflect. Then, quick as a flash, Ron spun away, brought his sabre over and caught the Badger in his shoulder.

The audience's empathetic "ooh" was probably quite distracting, but still preferable to the sounds of fellow soldiers slaughtering each other they'd later have to contend with.

This first hit incited Cedric, and he changed the rhythm of the battle, putting Ron on the defensive with a prodigious volley of attacks. Harry could actively see them analysing each other's styles as they battled. And while Ron's tactical skill allowed him to plan a manoeuvre several moves ahead, Cedric had a way of reading the fight as it happened and reacting with lightning speed. He was the true fighter of the two, stronger, quicker.

Ron's armoured pads registered a few cuts and grazes, so he changed tactics, retreating behind one of the many rocky protrusions that littered the arena. By the time Cedric raced around to meet him, Ron had climbed to its flat summit. With a kick of his boot, he sent debris cascading into Cedric's eyes. The sixth year staggered and Ron leapt, knocking him to the ground.

The crowd was chanting something that sounded a lot like: "Weasley is our king!" One half of Harry cheered along with them, the other side bristled.

Temporarily blind as he was, Cedric wrestled with Ron, ramming his elbow into where he knew his adversary's face was. The audience "ooh"ed again when bloody streams poured from Ron's nose. Nevertheless, the Lion clung on stubbornly until Cedric managed to throw him up and over his head.

Both sprang to their feet again, and Ron attacked immediately while Cedric's eyesight was still impaired. Still, the fight was uneven, Cedric picking at Ron's weaknesses and unravelling the boy for the world to see. With a wild bellow, Ron swung at Cedric's head. Cedric ducked, drew back his arm and felled him with an open-palmed thrust to his chest. Ron let the momentum roll him backwards into a crouch, but Cedric was already standing over him, kicking his feet out from underneath him and disarming him in one smooth stroke. Cedric bent over, planted a foot on his stomach and stabbed him in the heart.

The audience rose up to cheer. The arena rang in tribute to Cedric Diggory, the Yellow Ace, the Golden Badger. Harry jumped to his feet whooping and clapping, smiling as Cedric offered his hand to help Ron up. Ron, dirty-faced and fuming, slapped his hand away.

* * *

So, thoughts? Like what on Earth is going on with anything? I love hearing speculations, especially when people focus on all the right objects like the ring!

Thank you for waiting and reading. I hope there was something in there you enjoyed enough to take as recompense.

**Dbgtzfan2004:** Thank you very much. Yes, they're great together! **Janus Darko: **I love your insightful reviews. Your musings about the ring are very interesting… And there are many things wrong with the world, it's fun! **Shamzika: **you reviewing every chapter made my week. I guess Dumbledore must be getting even more annoying for you with each chapter, huh? Yes, Hermione's parents will be featured quite significantly later on.


	19. Chapter 19

**AN: Sorry for another long delay! University really makes you question your career choices…and how many hours of sleep you actually need. (A lot.)**

**Nevertheless, please read and enjoy. **

* * *

Harry stood when Ron approached him in the fourth year common room, ready to offer commiserations, reassurances, anything else his best friend needed. But any words of comfort faltered when Harry saw the pure rage on Ron's face.

'I know you told him,' the redhead hissed.

'Told who?' Harry replied slowly.

'Don't play the voider. Your precious Badger boy. Who else?'

'Cedric? What did I tell him?'

'About the tournament. You've been feeding him expo while you were getting all commy. Don't think I haven't seen you, whispering among yourselves like a cupla kid Muggles.'

Harry bridled at this accusation. 'What makes you think I would ever leak info on the tournament to _anyone_? Ron, you know me. I wouldn't do that.'

'Do I know you? I don't know the Harry that's always running off with the Gilded Badger all the time.'

'Well sorry I have more than one friend.'

'It's not even that, Harry. How could you tell him and not me?'

'I didn't bloody tell him anything! Now who's playing the voider? Cedric knew as much about the duel as you did. I take my role in this tournament seriously. But you don't even care about that. You'd happily let me the break the rules as long as I told you first.'

'You gave him the advantage over me. I thought we were number one coms.'

'We _are_. Ron, you're my best friend. I wouldn't do that to you. What would warning either of you that it was a duel do in any case? It's not like you weren't preparing for that eventuality anyway.'

'He knew he'd be fighting me. You told him about how I fight. How else would he outgun me at every turn?'

Harry felt his anger flare. 'Because he's _good_. He's good at combat! He won ok? He won fairly because I didn't tell him a single thing about you. Remember, they chose who fought who on the day, at random. I had no more of an idea he was fighting you than anyone else.'

'How do I know you aren't lying?'

'Merlin's bloody…' Harry muttered furiously to himself. 'Do you want to know the real reason Cedric beat you so easy? It's because he's _better_ than you.'

The declaration rang in the sudden silence of the common room. Harry was aware of thirty pairs of eyes watching them with gleeful shock.

'Fuck you,' Ron said so quietly only Harry could hear, his ears a painful pink. 'Or is that what Diggory's already doing?'

All sense of guilt imploded at that moment. 'What on Five? You don't know what you're talking about,' he growled. 'You're bloody deluded.'

But Ron didn't want to hear anymore. He was already leaving. 'Whatever, I'll think what I want to think, and you'll know what you actually know. I don't really care.'

'Don't walk away like you're the wounded party. You don't get to say complete scrap like that and blast off, acting all superior. Eight years, friends for over half our lives, is this all that's worth?'

Ron shrugged, _shrugged _as if that was the sum of the situation, and murmured a 'You tell me, Potter.'

Potter. Harry laughed. 'You know what? We both want you to piss off, so just do it. You're welcome to be a presumptuous twat somewhere else.'

Ron barely even let him finish, spinning on his heels and storming out with Seamus and Dean in tow. Harry was left with the damning silence of the common room and what felt like a thousand eyes scoring opinions into his skin. No wonder. The Chosen One didn't get angry in front of people unless it was for a worthy cause. He didn't bare his imperfect soul every time something threatened it. He remained calm and quick and above the impetuosity that defined his age group.

Well, screw that. His soul was stifling in the trap Harry called self-control. And there was no point acting collected now. His Chosen façade was well and truly scratched. He looked around. The students ringed him, like bars to a cage with him as the irate tiger about to make his daring escape.

'I'm going to walk out of this room,' he snarled. 'And you don't want to find yourself in my way.'

Harry was somewhat impressed by how quickly they cleared the way for him.

…

'He'll come round,' said Cedric.

When Harry didn't respond, continued to look moodily across the field, Cedric sighed. 'Harry, no beating yourself up. Save that for the Death Eaters.'

'I…just…how could he think that of me? My best friend? We've known each other since we were six, for Merlin's sake, and he thinks I would…'

Harry's hands curled into tight fists in the grass. Cedric placed his hands over them and soothed them open again. 'He's an idiot, but only because he's scared. Everything he knows about the world is shifting, and you, one of the biggest constants in his life, are changing too. He doesn't seem to know how to react except with anger and distrust. And it couldn't have helped much, me defeating him that way. Maybe if I'd gone easier on him…'

'Easier? He blinded you, Ced.'

'And I beat him blind. If I'd just played that up a bit, fumbled around more.'

'It wouldn't make a difference. You wouldn't throw the fight completely, so he'd still lose and he'd still get vexed about it. Stop trying to set it up as your fault when it's nowhere near.'

'Well, since that's your favourite hobby, I thought we could bond over it.'

'Spit,' Harry laughed, pushing at him. Too soon, the amusement faded. 'I just don't understand why he would say those things.'

'Maybe you shouldn't think so hard over it, com.'

'But I want to. I want to sort it out, or sort him out. Both. I mean, we've never fought like that. Things were always simple for us. Sure, sometimes he resented all the attention I got, and sometimes I wanted the Weasleys to be my family instead. But they were childish quibbles. We got over them. So why's he acting like the kid he was again? How has he regressed so far?'

'Only he knows the answer to that,' Cedric said, aiming to pacify.

Harry stood. 'Then I'll ask him.'

'Harry, calm. Sit.'

'No, I don't want to "calm" or "sit". My best friend's mad at me and I don't know why. Can't I be angry at that? Can't I be angry at anything anymore? Or do I just sit there smiling like a voidbrained spit while people who are meant to be on _my_ side say whatever unjustified scrap they want to me?! Is that bloody fair, Ced? Is that –?!'

Harry hadn't noticed the racing pulse of his heart until it stopped all together. The world swung away from him, colours intensified beyond permissibility, before they were lost to him altogether.

When he finally managed to find them again, he was in Cedric's arms, limbs flopping like a ragdoll with each step of Cedric's frantic jog. He was so weak that he could barely move his jaw, and a vague grunt was the height of his capabilities.

'Harry,' Cedric breathed. 'Bloody Merlin, you scared me. Your heart stopped. _Stopped_. I thought… I'm taking you the infirmary.'

An approximate 'No,' left Harry's mouth.

'That's not up for contention.'

'No,' Harry repeated.

'Harry, look at you. You can barely talk. This happened when you were a kid, didn't it? This is what happened when they worked you too hard.'

Harry didn't reply, only nudged Cedric's arm with a hand and looked at him with flinty eyes. The message was clear.

'Why won't you let me help you?'

_You'll be helping me by putting me down_, thought Harry, a sentiment expressed as: 'Are…hel...'

Cedric lowered him to the ground. The sun was setting, and the winds were slightly too brisk for a recreational walk, so there was no-one about this far away from the castle. Harry thanked Merlin. He didn't want anyone to see him like this, staff nor student.

It took quite a while to work himself out of this state of quivering vulnerability, slowly exercising control over his body. Harry hadn't remembered these collapses ever being so severe before, so draining. He blandly wondered if the next seizure would kill him.

'Seeing you like this, it gives me the quakes, hom.'

'Why, because I can't be weak?' Harry rasped, trying to get to his feet. Cedric offered a hand, but Harry glared until it was withdrawn.

'No, because you can't not be strong.'

'What's the difference?' Harry was on both feet, bracing his legs and straightening up.

'You know the difference.'

'Yeah, one sounds a lot more stupid than the other.'

Cedric chuckled. 'Hey, you're standing.'

'Don't speak too soon.'

Cedric caught him, throwing Harry's arm around his shoulders. 'Got you.'

'Thanks, com.' It was soft, but Cedric caught that too.

'Someone has to be Ron,' said Cedric.

'Not you. You're different.'

'Different how?'

Harry favoured him with a lazy smile. 'You know the difference.'

…

Harry had never figured out what to think of Luna, and in a way that seemed right. A way to think about her was another way to define and confine her, and she obstinately resisted categorisation. When he saw her coming out of the forest as he commenced his morning exercise, way before sunrise, he calmly accepted it. At least she had rediscovered footwear.

'Good morning, Luna,' he said.

'Good morning, Harry,' she replied. She looked extremely dishevelled, but Harry was still too unfamiliar with people his age to know for certain whether it was acceptable to comment on it. He supposed he somewhat resisted categorisation too.

'Everything all right?'

'Yes, thank you,' said Luna. 'Where's your usual training partner?'

'Oh, Neville? He's keeping his distance now he's this far into the tournament. He figs it's for the best.'

'I see.'

Luna had drawn closer now and taken to staring meditatively into his face. He bore her scrutiny for a little while before beginning to fidget. 'Are you sure everything's all right?'

'I knew it,' said Luna.

'Knew what?'

'It's not just me…and him.'

'Who's him?'

'He Who Must Not Be Named.'

'What–?'

'You're similar, you and he.'

It felt wrong to scowl at Luna, but he did anyway. 'I don't see how.'

'Me neither, not clearly, but it's only inevitable. It's the Nargles. They avoid the question when they can, but when they don't, they never lie.'

'Nargles?' asked Harry. Luna's knees buckled beneath her weight and Harry raced to steady her. 'Whoa, you look exhausted. I mean…you don't look…well? How do I say this politely?'

Luna had no suggestions; she only smiled brightly and said, 'Typical Nargle aftermath, nothing to worry about. It's a bit like your seizures…except not at all really.'

'How do you know about my...? Only one student knows, and he wouldn't tell anyone. And no-one saw me collapse at the Winter Dance. People spread all these stupid rumours about me going down heroically, taking twenty men with me.'

'I just know,' Luna said cheerfully, swaying haphazardly against him.

'Merlin, do you want me to take you back to the castle?' He suddenly understood Cedric's dogged attempts to carry him to the infirmary a little more.

'No, it's ok, Harry. I've dealt with Nargles by myself many times before. You should continue with your training. You're going to need it.'

'Yeah,' Harry muttered blankly. 'Thanks, I guess.'

'Say hello to Hermione for me.'

'Ok,' Harry said, watching her toddle off in a crooked line. Luna was the only person he knew less the more he talked to her.

…

Hermione leaned on her elbows, appearing in great danger of listing forwards and planting her face in her porridge. Her eyes were shut, but her mind was racing, and the other Ravens carefully angled their conversations over her head. They didn't know exactly what was wrong with her, but her wan complexion and careworn features were clear signals that she was not to be disturbed.

Harry was apparently oblivious to those signals.

'Luna says hi,' Harry told her, commandeering the space beside her.

'Luna? You saw her?'

'Yeah, this morning while I was out training.'

'She hasn't come to breakfast.'

'Should I be this worried about her? She comes out of the forest before dawn, looking close to death and rambling about Nargles, and she just skips breakfast?'

'She does that a lot when the, er, the _Nargles_ come. It's come to the point where I pack some food for her in case I find her.'

'These Nargles, what exactly are they?'

'I'm not sure myself, Harry. All she will tell me is that they're creatures, most likely fantastical, that speak to her. I think she's quite ill.'

Harry nodded gravely, forking his vegetable omelette with a small frown. 'How's the project with Flamel?'

'Catastrophic.'

'But you made a massive leap.'

'Theoretically, yes. It's the realisation of the theory that's causing the problems.' She tried her best to convey her struggles in layman terms, but she soon petered out between the remembered frustration of Flamel's impatience and the brittleness of Harry's forced interest. 'Never mind,' she grumbled.

'I wish I were as smart as you sometimes,' said Harry. 'Then I could actually help you, instead of sitting here and pretending I know what you're vexing about. I do care; I'm just not sure exactly what I'm caring about.'

'That's fine,' she said with little joy. 'It's not as if I understand every part of your problems.'

Someone came up behind Harry and placed a hand on each of his shoulders, and a good portion of the table turned and ogled when Harry looked up and grinned. 'Ced.'

'I brought you an orange,' said Cedric, retrieving it from his pocket, 'because you need to enjoy the sweeter things in life.'

Harry winced. 'That's awful. Are you trying to embarrass me in front of my friends?'

'No,' Cedric protested, 'I was genuinely trying to cheer you up!'

'With an orange?'

'Works on all the girls.'

'I'm detecting a huge flaw in that reasoning.'

'Really? I'm not.'

The surrounding Ravens ogled harder when all Harry did was elbow him and mutter: "Tosser," in good humour.

'Hello, Hermione,' Cedric finally acknowledged. Hermione treated the greeting with a frosty smile. He was very charming and endearing, she supposed, but she suspected that she would like him significantly more if he stopped talking to Harry and went away.

Ron, popping up on the other side of the Raven's table, seemed to share this view. 'Not exactly subtle, are you, Diggory? Playing nice to jet through the tournament? What're you going to do for the win?'

'Be himself,' Harry informed him tartly.

Ron promptly turned to Hermione. 'Taken _his_ side then? Figged you would.'

'What makes you think I've "taken sides", Ronald?'

'Well, you're sitting with him,' he said in a tone that Hermione couldn't quite place.

'This is my house table! He's sitting with me.'

'Oh, yeah.'

'Just tell him to piss off,' Harry told her. 'You're fused enough with that project. You don't need this spit boiling you up as well.'

'Well, you can tell _him_ that you don't have to do anything you don't want, Hermione.' Ron countered.

Harry laughed in disbelief. 'And you probably want to tell him that–'

Hermione stood abruptly. 'I'm not the bloody Floo! And neither of you know what I want. So I'll tell you. I want you to remember all those years of friendship and stop this ridiculous fighting. Failing that, a bit of peace and quiet wouldn't go amiss. I've got enough to worry about without being suddenly loaded with a cupla noisy, vexing man-children.'

When she saw that the approximately fifty nearest people to her were all watching her in astonishment, she was simultaneously proud and mortified. To hide this curious juggling of sensations, she grabbed a bread roll and a banana off the table. 'I'm going to find Luna. I'd rather hear about her Nargles than watch you quibble at each other.'

Her point decidedly made, she stormed from the dining hall. For the rest of breakfast, she searched the castle for Luna. She was nowhere to be found.

…

When had things started going so wrong? The Golden Trio were just gilded copper and had corroded right under his nose. Harry was tetchy; Hermione was tetchy; Ron was downright acrimonious. Harry had at least managed to apologise to Hermione and resume a comfortable friendship, which was good. He needed her now more than ever. But he needed Ron too. He hadn't existed without him since the day they met.

The twins, surprisingly enough, had sided with Harry, proclaiming their little brother a misguided pillock and a sore loser. 'Besides,' Fred had added after Harry finished laughing semi-guiltily at Ron's expense, 'he doesn't set us mad exciting espionage tasks. He just tells on us to Mum if we so much as sneeze suspiciously.'

'How's that going anyway?'

'We've found something. We just need a bit more time to fig it out. Give it a week.'

Fred and George may have been idlers in the schoolroom, but this challenge seemed to have awakened a bottomless well of productivity in them. Just three days later, they were pulling him inside an empty classroom with sober expressions.

Harry sat on the teacher's desk, and the twins stood before him like two bright young employees making an ideas pitch.

'So, we upheld our promise, did some digging around. You will not believe what we found on Dumbledore's comp system.'

Harry marvelled at the both of them. 'You went right for it, didn't you? Dumbledore's comp?'

'Where else would we find the salacious expo you set us to uncover?'

'How did you get in?'

'Set a couple of decoy detonators out in the hall and then got Ginny to ask him a lot of challenging questions about pets at school. She does good improv, learnt from the best. He whole fell for it,' George explained with a distinct air of disappointment.

'Hacking his comp was a sim game as well. You'd think he'd have better security.'

'He's got Gringotts-grade security on that thing!' Harry exclaimed. He remembered the day when a technician from the infamously impenetrable bank had come in to install it.

'All of that is irrelevant though. Take a look at what we found.'

Fred brandished his soltab and Harry did the same, tapping them edgeways and watching the information funnel across.

'Messages?' Harry asked when the exchange was complete and he riffled through the content.

'Correspondence between Dumbledore and the First Minister himself.'

'Fudge?'

'That's the one. Cornelius Fudge. In power for six years, Merlin knows why he was re-elected. We read up on him in light of the situ. Turns out he awarded _himself_ an Order of Merlin. What a prick.'

'So what business does this prick have with us?'

'An excellent question. One we will summarise the answer to. It's long otherwise, lots of niceties and flowery prose. Over five years it builds up. You've got all the info in front of you now, but if it's all the same to you, we'll read from our notes.'

'Go ahead,' Harry nodded.

'All right. So Crouch was right. Almost everything we see around us was paid for with Ministry money. Everything but the castle, naturally.'

'I was told that the castle was left to us by an ancestor of Dumbledore's.'

'Possible I suppose. This contract is pretty elucidating though. Don't tell me you never wondered how the school could afford all this top quality tech.'

'There are plenty rich Order members, if they amassed funds...'

'You actually believed that.'

'Not completely, but then I'm whole aware of Dumbledore keeping so many secrets from me. My priorities tend to involve the ones that are directly about me, my friends or Voldemort.'

'We'll allow that.'

'Wow, thanks,' was Harry's flat reply.

'So here's where it gets interesting. What Dumbledore's offered in exchange. George here will be so kind as to guide you to the most recent revision of the contract.'

George sketched on Harry's soltab until the appropriate document appeared. 'Dating from Jan of this year.'

Harry tried to read it, but it wasn't long before his head swam. 'Even if most people found this, they'd be so put off by all this ornamentation they'd stop reading. Merlin, is this even English?'

'Took us a while, but we cut through all the double talk and got this.' Fred read aloud: 'Mr Fudge bequeaths two million galleons–'

'Two _million_?'

'–annually to support the Order of the Phoenix School, which will be referred as "the establishment" in all future recurrences. Then blah blah, dates the money will be paid, whose Gringotts account it will go into, conditions on what the governors of "the establishment" can spend it on.'

'Why would they want to control that?'

'Because of Dumbledore's side of the contract.'

'What's that? What's Fudge getting out of this?'

'Us.'

Harry scrolled frenetically through his copy of the document. 'What?'

'The services of a highly-skilled private army.'

'Dumbledore wouldn't.'

'Says it … not quite clear as day … paragraph forty-seven, clause one through to three. Dumbledore's sold us for two million a year. Not bad, eh George?'

'I feel valued.'

'No, he wouldn't do that!' Harry said. 'Say what you want about Dumbledore, but everything he does is about bringing Voldemort down. There's no way he'd drop the cause and auction us off to some sheltered, self-satisfied politician.'

'No, he wouldn't. Not without a back-up plan.'

Harry sank back onto his desk, still tense. 'Which is?'

Fred cleared his throat. 'Apparently, the contract is rendered void if You-Know-Who really does return. I think we all know what Fudge would prefer.'

'The First Minister's really confident about his odds then,' said Harry.

'Only as confident as Dumbledore is.'

'Dumbledore has every right to be confident. Voldemort's returning.'

'But if he doesn't?' George prompted.

'Out of the question. He's coming back. There's no other way to explain it.'

'That sounds good to me. I mean, we get the worst deal out of it. Either way, Fudge is paying for a personal army (for whatever horrific reason he probably has) or he's funding Five's best defence from a fascist madman. But us, working for him? I'd sooner take Azkaban. I bet that's what we'd get for not following up on the contract, military prison.'

'No, Harry gets the worst by far. They reserved something special for you, Golden Boy. This part was vaguest of them all, pretty much buried in euphemisms, but we're seeing a twisted amalgam of a bodyguard, law enforcer and assassin.'

Harry was not amused. Was his life worth so little that it could be sold in a few sentences? And what about the first years, fresh into the school? Eleven and twelve at the most. Were they potential Ministry property too?

'There's one part that left us in the dark a bit. Fudge is also claiming patent to every new piece of tech that originates from this school. That part's non-negotiable, even if You-Know-Who returns, though we have free access to it if it's beneficial to our cause. What in Five is that meant to mean?'

Harry knew immediately. 'Hermione.'

…

**Day 32**

**Bases have been stabilised. Proceeding to input the coding chips into place.**

**Chip compatibility issue. **

**Day 33**

**The issue remains**

**Day 34**

**As above**

**Day 35**

**Issue solved. Everything looks functional.****Testing on inanimate subjects will start tomorrow.**

Professor, are you actually reading my notes?

**Day 36 **

**Test 1: Iron filing**

**Chosen for its size and simple ionically bonded chemical composition. First attempt has the iron filing disassembling but never reassembling on the other base. Troubleshooting problems. 1) The algorithm needs revision. 2) The bases' internal computers are too slow. 3) The electromagnetic force is not strong enough for reassembly. **

**Results: 1. But 2 may need to be addressed when undertaking larger tasks. **

I wasn't trying to sound accusatory, sir. I was just curious about why you needed a verbal update on the project when I made these notes. I pride myself in keeping them concise and informative.

Also, would there be a possibility of getting even faster CPUs for the bases' computers? Thank you.

**Day 37**

**Rewriting algorithm**

I agree, Professor. As poetic as the pebble would have been, I'm having enough difficulty with the iron filing.

**Day 40**

**Teleportation successful. Iron filing transported from one base to another. I am trying very hard to keep this documentation clinical and professional.**

May I cash in on my holiday leave now? A week off should suffice.

**Day 41**

**Test 2: Pebble – calcium and magnesium**

**Teleportation successful. **

I apologise again, sir. I promise you that I know there are no sabbaticals. I will leave the joking for more competent "youths".

**Day 43**

**Test 7: Apple – the most chemically complex subject yet. We will have to think in terms of macronutrients and phytochemicals as well as just elements and their simple compounds. **

**Apple teleported, however some of the more complex compounds are not being reassembled properly. Algorithm needs more revision.**

I'm rather sure that I had ten apples set out this morning. Now there are only eight. Have you any idea where the missing two could have got to?

**Day 44**

**Revision successfully made. Apple successfully transported. **

**Test 8: Flower – also successfully transported**

No, sir, I was not being accusatory that time either.

**Day 45**

**Test 9: Insect**

**First attempt at transporting a sentient being with albeit underdeveloped body systems that will make the speed of chemical reassembly all the more important.**

**Successful 10/10 times, much to this scientist's relief. **

**Day 46**

**After much insistence from Professor Slughorn, I am extending the trial to mammals. **

**Test 10: Rat: aside from its convenient size, its biological construction is remarkably similar to a human's. **

**Teleportation unsuccessful.**

**Day 47**

**Teleportation unsuccessful**

**Day 48**

**Teleportation unsuccessful**

**Day 49**

**They keep dying.**

**Day 50**

**Canot find the solution. Chemical compsiition to complex. Teleportation takig too slow. Body functions stop. **

**Dat 51 **

**Scabbers died. I calld him Scavbers beacuse he had scabby little feet. In the bin with all the no-names, I can still pick him out because of those feet. I should have named them all. They deserved names.**

To all rats, I am She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named.

…

Draco expended a great deal of effort in maintaining his Malfoy ring. Every night before bed, he would polish it with the same attentiveness Dobson afforded his formal shoes, for Draco was only a servant to the Malfoy legacy.

'Yes, yes, we all know Daddy's very proud of you,' said Nott as he usually did when he caught Draco admiring it, 'but if you'd at least like to pretend that we're more interesting than a piece of jewellery.'

Draco surveyed him from his sprawling position across the best sofa. Not that there were many options left to them, as his Snakes kept to one corner of the common room, creating an exclusive little oasis jestingly labelled as the Serpent's Nest by the rest of their year. 'Well, what were you talking about?'

'Er, we were speculating about the third stage of the tourna–'

'Still? The second stage was weeks ago, the third is weeks away, and yet that's all people talk about. That and bloody Potter. Who cares who wins the tournament? They'll still be just another soldier in another squadron in the end. A Colin Catch-all, good at everything, outstanding at nothing. When they finally establish a competition that favours a more refined skillset, perhaps that will be worth discussing for days on end.'

'Well, what do you suggest we talk about then, Malfoy?' Zabini asked coolly.

'The First Minister tried to combat the House of Forebears over mansion tax yesterday,' Greengrass commented.

'The man's an idiot,' declared Draco. 'My father can barely stand to have dealings with him. He doesn't even know his station. First ministers are fleeting, but the great Houses are timeless.'

His ring appeared to wink in approval at his claim.

'It's such a pretty ring,' said Pansy (much to the other Snakes' silent vexation) carding a hand through Draco's hair. He suffered through it. The girl's trivial carryings-on were close to intolerable, but her lap was a superlative headrest. 'You're so lucky the school let you keep it.'

'Why wouldn't they let me keep it? It's mine.'

'You remember what they did to that charming emerald necklace with the matching earrings my father sent me.' Yes, Draco did. He'd thought she'd finally stopped complaining about it. 'I didn't get to wear them even once before the stupid Order set its hands on them. I bet they're halfway across Five by now, being flogged in some back-alley Birmin auction for half their value.'

'I heard the school just incinerated what they apprehended,' said Zabini.

'Who told you that?' inquired Nott.

'That boy who's in on some of the Weasley twins' schemes. Jordan I think it was.'

'And what were you doing talking to Jordan?' Draco demanded.

'Being more well-informed than you are.'

'You'd like to think. A Lion's word is a good as none. They weren't sorted for wits, you know.'

Blaise acceded with a nonchalant shrug.

'The real reason that your jewellery was sequestered, Pansy, is that they were obviously more than they seemed. The security system detected nothing off about my ring, meaning that it is exactly what it seems.'

'The jewellery was probably another optimistic attempt to infiltrate the Order from a member of _His_ more, ah, remote circle,' Zabini commented in a suitably low voice. 'You know the sort who would jeopardise their Dark Lord's plans in the counterproductive attempt to seem useful.'

Pansy seethed. 'Correct me if I'm wrong, Zabini, but I don't think your parents were in any circle at all.' Her voice was the opposite of suitably low.

'Pansy,' Draco said sharply, but he was saved from governing the impending argument by an alert on his soltab. It was a summons from Slughorn for tomorrow evening. 'Nothing to report,' he said beneath several inquisitive stares, putting the soltab away again.

As a considerably one-sided quarrel started between Pansy and Zabini, Draco fell back to staring at his ring. It was far more interesting.

…

Draco sauntered into the Military Science room at a calculated two minutes past seven. Malfoys couldn't be presumed upon to wait for anyone, but they also couldn't be accused of being unpunctual. Slughorn smiled at him from his desk. 'Draco, m'boy, good to see you.'

'Good to see you too, Professor,' Draco nodded politely. 'If I may ask, why did you call me here?'

'I will explain in a moment. Until then, we must wait.'

'For what?' Draco asked through gritted teeth.

Slughorn just smiled.

Ten minutes later, in which Draco decided that Malfoys had a genetic aversion towards waiting, a heaving, ragged red mess burst through the door, squeezing a stream of apologies through a greater stream of pants.

'Weasley?'

The youngest Weasel shared his surprise. 'Malfoy?'

'Excellent, you're both here,' said Slughorn. 'The lesson may begin. Would you boys seat yourselves at the holo table?'

The boys looked to the table in unison and saw that it was now arranged with a chair on either end. Trying not to acknowledge each other's presence, they sat.

'Hmm, now let's see what I'll devise for you.'

'Wait, you want us to battle each other?' asked Draco.

'Why yes, Draco. There isn't much else to do on a specially-programmed table when faced with a tactician similar in skill to you.'

Weasley's chuckle made a very unconvincing cough.

'_Him_, similar in skill to _me_?'

'Forgive me, you're quite right, Draco. Ron here is indeed significantly better than you. However, he needs someone to battle against, someone more organic and unpredictable than a computer, and you are probably the only other student who could pose a real challenge to him. You will play against each other; you will learn from each other; you will _respect_ each other. Am I clear?'

'Heard, sir,' Weasley said with all the responsiveness of a well-trained hound.

'Yes, Professor,' Draco added.

'Very good. Excuse me for a minute now, boys.' Slughorn connected his soltab to the simulator table and input his directives, the two boys beginning to squirm as the table's surface revealed nothing.

'Your battlefield is along the foot of Merlin's Peak.'_ Perfect terrain for stealth techniques,_ thought Draco, 'at nineteen hours.'

'Time of year,' Weasley requested.

'Oct.'

_Poor visibility._

'Your camps are a kilometre from each other, and both have intel that your enemy wants. You must protect it at all costs. You have two platoons of twenty men each at your disposal. You also have five aircraft available to you - fitted with both standard artillery and bombs - and two anti-aircraft guns. Start.'

Draco thought quickly as the battle scene materialised before him. A noise-cancelling barrier bisected the playing field, so that neither boy would be privy to the other's issued commands. The anti-aircraft guns would be effectively useless in this light. Cloaking devices and virtually silent engines meant the enemy planes could slip into the sky almost seamlessly. Their night vision would also allow them to target opposing soldiers with fatal accuracy.

As far as Draco could see from his mobile cameras, Weasley wasn't using his planes, which was probably the wisest move. Whatever brief advantage against the infantry his aircraft would give him, it would quickly devolve into an aerial battle that would only serve as a distraction from the main conflict.

_Let's give Weasley some of his own medicine_, Draco decided, dividing his men into squads as he'd seen the redhead do. One soldier from each platoon went to man the AA guns, just as a precaution, but that was all the defence his camp would get. He'd blindside the Weasley so well, he'd never even get the chance to make it that far.

He mobilised his men, sent them weaving through the natural cover the terrain provided him in elegant patterns. He briefly checked his cameras. The voider Weasel had left practically half his men at the camp, Malfoy observed with a thrill of hilarity. Malfoy could deal with the puny force Weasley had sent out to meet him before using his barely depleted numbers to finish of the reserves at the base.

There the force was, outnumbered two to one. Malfoy's forces converged, carefully still, leapfrogging and shooting-and-scooting, picking off the Weasley's men one by on with laughable ease. Better than Draco, was he? Perhaps that glorified win in Military Science (and, yes he supposed the few that had followed since) had led to an overestimation on Slughorn's part.

He had Weasley encircled. Now all he had to do was finish them and – but where were all these enemy soldiers coming from? They came seemingly out of nowhere, culling Draco's men from behind. And the Weasley soldiers he had encircled were fighting back as well until Draco was the one surrounded. Now the reserves moved, slipping past to storm Draco's camp.

Merlin! His two men at the AA guns were swiftly dealt with. Even if Draco's main force managed to break away now, there weren't enough to contend with the Weasley's army. The intel was forfeit, and Weasley's smug face only affirmed it.

Unless…there was no intel at all.

With a shaky hand, he selected an aircraft. And ordered it to bomb his camp. Even simulated, the plumes of smoke and fire were magnificent to behold. The flickering out of Weasley's army only added to the visual splendour.

'Yes,' said Slughorn gravely, 'Pyrrhic but necessary in these circumstances.'

'But that's not fair, sir!' Ron thundered. 'I'd already won!'

'Pardon, Mr Weasley? For an instant it sounded as if you think warfare is a just practice. You play it like a chess game, and you play it well, but it certainly isn't one. There are no neat concluding procedures, no "checkmates" and expecting the enemy to come quietly. The battle is never "won" while the opposition still has fangs. Rip those from the root and obliterate the enemy. You must be ruthless in rendering them ineffectual.

'And you Mr Malfoy. I hardly see what you are smirking about. Such bold last minute moves won't always win you the battle. Before then, Mr Weasley was running circles around you. The problem with your tactical MO, Mr Malfoy, is that you do not credit your adversaries. You see them as an unresponsive simulator, no, a cowed audience that watches obediently as you display your tactical brilliance. Well, you're foolish. The opposition will be directed by a tactician just as brilliant as you are, and you will need to consider every move they could make before even they have and factor that into your own decisions.

'To emphasise that, I want you to recount exactly how Mr Weasley managed his men and won the battle that just passed. After that, you will compete again. Mr Weasley, you will do well to take what I've said on board as well.'

Two hours of hard battling later, Slughorn released them with a few brusque, impassive words, Draco smarting from his five losses against the astonishingly canny Weasley. The two wins Draco had managed to prise from his dictatorial grasp hadn't stopped him preening. He looked rather like an inferior version of the peacocks that his father kept on the manor grounds. It didn't suit him at all.

It was unavoidable that they would have to return to their common room together. Other (longer) routes were available to them, but there was an innate understanding between them that the first one to desert would be the loser of a whole new battle. And Draco was keen to keep all of his losing within the confines of a classroom.

'So, what do you think all that was for?' the Weasel asked after a couple minutes of stagnant silence. Draco already preferred the stagnancy. 'So you're just going to ignore me then, Malfoy? Would've expected better from a well-bred little Forebear heir.'

Draco sneered. His conduct very much depended on the company he kept. 'I would've thought that it's obvious what they're doing, Weasley. They're grooming us for tactical command.'

'Just the two of us, or are there others?'

'And how am I supposed to know that? I'm not exactly a close confidant of the faculty. There may be others in pairs like us, Belby and Carmichael maybe, Pucey and Shafiq.'

Weasley watched him carefully. 'But that's not what you really think. You think we're better than all of them.'

Draco scoffed.

'There's no point pretending it's funny anymore, Malfoy. Today made it pretty clear that I'd beat you in a battle.'

Draco walked a little faster, but Ron's stride was longer. 'As if I care.'

'But you do,' Ron realised, catching the vestiges of irritation Draco thought he'd hidden. 'You can't stand it, can you? Ron Weasley is better at something than you are. And not just anything. At something you actually try hard at, want to do.'

_Malfoy decorum_, Draco told himself in his father's voice, _I am the face of_ _the Malfoy line in this school_. Of course, these personal lectures had always been ineffectual in the presence of Potter and his red minions. 'What I want to do? Don't make me laugh. I'm a Malfoy, I can do whatever I like. I don't need to be a good tactician to earn my glory, it was given to me the moment I was born. One day I'll take my father's place in the House of Forebears and make decisions that will affect this entire planet.

'And you, Weasley? What are you without this war?' Draco exulted in Weasley's expression. 'You know what you are, and beating another kid at a computer simulation won't change that. You can't even finish a school tournament.'

Weasley had stopped keeping pace with him by now, yet Draco continued all the same. When he turned to glance over his shoulder, Weasley looked lost and diminished in the cavernous castle hallway. Draco smiled tightly. 'Say hello to Potter for me. Oh, wait, it seems he finally did manage to grasp what the wrong sort was after all.'

The barb had lodged nice and tightly, and Draco left Weasley standing there, a victor no more.

…

The fact that the third stage was a tactical battle must have been like the venom in an acromantula bite for Ron. Not that Harry would know, as the youngest Weasley was still refusing to talk to him. It was all too easy to scrutinise the blandly competent gameplay of the remaining dozen – all who were more soldiers than strategists – and predict what Ron would have done instead. Sometimes, he kept up with the Ron in his brain; at other times the mental conjuration threw even him.

He was one of very few that were completely disengaged from the events. The tricky manoeuvring and fast-paced reactions – all projected onto large screens in stunning true-def – made for a rather unexpected crowd pleaser. Even the Ministry officials (there was a greater turnout with each stage) watched the proceedings with considerable excitement. Harry supposed that since the violence was all virtual, they could admire the talent on display without the distraction of aggressive youths brandishing sabres at each other.

Six finalists emerged from the simulated fray: Cedric Diggory, Neville Longbottom, Angelina Johnson, Alicia Spinnet, Roger Davies and Eddie Carmichael. The dearth of Snakes was very telling, though what of varied vastly from student to student.

Harry had to say that the government representatives' grudging approbation – not to mention McLaggen's long-awaited ejection from the tournament – was auspicious enough for him not to call the day a complete waste. And maybe, Harry thought, it wouldn't be too optimistic to say that the fourth stage would crown the tournament as a turnabout success.

…

Reclining in the armchair overlooking the manor grounds, cradling a glass of wine in his right hand, Lucius Malfoy looked to be the embodiment of everything a distinguished Forebear Councillor should be. But the glancing out of the window was merely to stall, the wine to calm his nerves. He almost always did this when it was time to floo the Dark Lord Voldemort.

Once he had finished his glass, he resisted the urge to refill it – one could not appear before the Lord in less than peak condition – and went to the large landscape mirror that hung over the mantelpiece. It was inbuilt camera, microphone and all the software necessities that would allow him to make cross-settlement communication.

'You know who to call,' he told it.

Moments later, his floo call was accepted and a squat, unsightly man whose hair resembled a bedraggled rat's filled the mirror's frame.

'Pettigrew,' Lucius acknowledged flatly.

'Lucius, always a pleasure to receive your floo,' Pettigrew answered with his usual smarminess. If anything, it had only worsened when he of all the Lord's faithful servants had been selected to serve him on the voyage to the Whole Earth.

'I request a meeting with our Lord.'

'Please hold.'

The mirror once again showed Lucius his reflection, but to his relief, when the floo call activated again, Pettigrew was gone and a wiry, dark-haired man with frightening red irises had replaced him. Lucius bowed at the waist.

'My Lord, you told me to update you following any significant change to the Ministry climate?'

'Ah, Lucius, my ever faithful. Inform away.'

'Well, it appears to be looking far more favourably on the Order and its radical tournament ever since the most recent stage. Fudge is expressing interest in attending the final stage and observing these Order wunderkinder himself.'

'I see.'

'Would that be a problem, my Lord?'

'Why do you ask?'

'Because open Ministry support of the Order could complicate your plan of returning in complete concealment. We both know how malleable the public can be. Where the Ministry leads, they follow. You charged me with discrediting the Order whenever it fit within my usual patterns of operation.'

'I recall perfectly well what I charged you with, Lucius, but I wouldn't overly concern yourself with this development. It will take more to than a handful of performing children to alter their beliefs about me. As far as they're concerned, I'm a nightmare that conveniently dissolved and is better off forgotten. Fudge especially has the prodigious ability to make himself blind to anything he doesn't wish to see. I suppose that's why he remains in power.'

'Indeed,' Lucius said with a smirk, 'a large convenience for us. A cannier man would not have signed Dumbledore's contract and been manipulated out of millions for an army that he will never own. Yes, most fortunate how eager to believe in your evanescence that makes him.'

The Dark Lord nodded. 'That army will not protect him when I ascend, no matter how much money he funnels into them.'

'But the less he knows of that the better.'

'Is young Draco looking after his gift?'

'Yes, my lord,' Lucius said with a touch of unavoidable pride. 'He treasures it, all while remaining ignorant of its true significance. And it still hasn't triggered the school security systems.'

'Well of course it hasn't. I told you it wouldn't.'

'You did,' Lucius said, bowing hastily.

'Is that all? Very well. I shall see you shortly. Make sure that our mutual friends are coordinated for my arrival. Discretion is key. I want to take Potter completely by surprise. And this time I will verify the boy's death myself. We do not need a repeat of your wife's moment of weakness.'

'No, she was an infidel who deserved your judgement.'

'Hmm,' said the Dark Lord, assessing the downturned face of his trusted disciple, 'indeed. Well, Lucius, as you were.'

As soon as the floo call had ended for certain, Lucius reached for his wine. That was the pattern of things. One glass before a meeting with Voldemort, the rest of the bottle afterwards.

* * *

**I need magic; you probably need magic. I'm strongly considering writing a Harmony fic containing tremendous amounts of ******witchcraft **********and ****wizardry with all my new free time!**


	20. Chapter 20

**Twenty chapters in? I sense a disclaimer refresher coming on: I do not own Harry Potter. **

**As always, thank you to everyone reading this work and I hope you enjoy it. **

* * *

With clinical precision, Hermione placed the day's first rat on the teleportation base and fed it a piece of pumpkin to keep it there. The sight of a rat hunched over, gnawing at the piece of fruit clasped in its paws, used to tear at the naturalist inside of her. Now she breezed through the procedures, mapping its atomic makeup and averting her eyes as it gobbled its last meal like a prisoner of Azkaban on death row.

'Day 83,' she mumbled, thankful that her soltab was familiar enough with her speech patterns to log her discourse correctly. 'Scanning subject 1 and preparing to initiate testing of project revision number hundred and…hundred and one, no, two.' The soltab discarded her dithering and punched a neat 102 at the end of the sentence. 'Aren't you clever?' she told it. It didn't respond.

'I thought I was clever,' she murmured to herself, rubbing her eyes fiercely. Gathering her tattered rationality, she pressed the teleport button without ceremony. She'd long stopped holding her breath and watching avidly each time.

A minute or so later, the rat appeared on the other base on the far side of the room, deadly still as the others had been – though not dismembered like some of the earliest specimens. Hermione sauntered over, failure no longer a sharp sting but a dull, resigned ache. 'Subject appears to be frozen in place, body stiff in a close resemblance to rigor mortis. The system failure of disruption of the subject's internal bodily functions may have persisted from the previous–' Hermione froze as the rat came out of its self-imposed inertia and continued to eat its pumpkin.

'Subject appears to be alive,' Hermione whispered, 'and functioning perfectly. I…I'm going to scan it now.'

She triggered the algorithm and pored over the atomic map it created. Unchanged from before teleportation. Except for the pumpkin, which had significantly decreased in mass. A little laugh escaped her.

'Teleportation successful.'

Hermione refused to celebrate yet. She picked up the rat and returned it to the first base. Technically, the teleportation should work from either base, but she wanted as many constancies in this repeat experiment as possible. Four more times she pressed the launch, and four more times the rat materialised across the room, alive and well. She gave it another slice of pumpkin for its efforts and took out another rat. It teleported five times. Then she reversed the process, teleporting it from the second base to the first a further five times.

'I did it,' she tried to convince herself. 'I'm teleporting mammals. I'm _teleporting_.'

She brought up the Floo function on her soltab. Her first instinct should have been to contact her teacher and project partner, but her fingers found Harry's name before her overworked brain even registered it.

He came within fifteen minutes, entering this new room with a routine sweep of his eyes, though Hermione could see that it was as much out of curiosity as habit. She tried to see the room through his eyes, a labyrinth of esoteric objects that could be anything from a semiconductor laser to an elaborate desk lamp.

'You know this room's being monitored, right?' he told her in way of greeting, pointing out the cameras fitted in the upper corners of the room. She'd spent hours in here each day and she hadn't spotted what he'd noted in less than a minute.

Hermione was too high off of her recent achievement to care much. 'I'm pretty sure most of the school's monitored, Harry.'

'The public areas, yeah. But private rooms like this one shouldn't be. Only you, Flamel and Dumbledore can unlock this place, right?'

'Maybe they want to know who to hold responsible for breaking a thousand Galleon atomiser. The headprof always has his reasons for things. Do we have to talk about that though, Harry? I wanted to show you the teleportation.'

'Of course, show away.'

The base was square, made from rounded smartglass and large enough for a tall man to stand on comfortably. It just about fit on Hermione's work desk. Hermione put the rat in the centre and fed it the customary piece of fruit. At her signal, the base's perimeter projected blazing white walls of light that were at least seven feet high.

'Whoa!' exclaimed Harry. His eyes were jewel-like with wonder.

'Those were the sensors outlining the atomic structure of the rat so it can be recreated on the other side. That algorithm was a real…a real…'

'Bitch?' Harry suggested.

Hermione shot him a disapproving stare, 'ordeal to work out. Now watch.'

'Yes, Hermione,' Harry said meekly.

Harry's great show of obedient focus became genuine, rapt attention as the rat disappeared. 'What? Where?'

Hermione pointed with a wordless smile. Harry spun around sharply and gaped to see the rat on the other base, nibbling away nonchalantly as if it hadn't been subjected to a revolutionary scientific experience.

'Hermione,' Harry breathed, 'Hermione you're…you're a blasting genius.'

'I wouldn't say–' She squealed, with very little dignity, when Harry threw her up and spun her around, laughing like a dosed maniac. It was contagious. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders and laughed into his hair. Even the wistful wondering of if he even knew what he was doing to her gave way to helpless giggling.

Who knows how long they would have continued, laughing and babbling until they were hoarse, if Dumbledore hadn't swept into the room to end the revelry. When they saw him, they fell deadly silent, Harry gently setting Hermione back on her feet.

'Congratulations on your achievement, Ms Granger,' Dumbledore said. 'Mr Flamel has been informed and will be arriving shortly to share in your celebrations. Harry, if you would accompany me outside.'

Hermione and Harry wordlessly looked to each other and mirrored expressions of confusion. 'Yes, sir,' he replied.

'Well,' Dumbledore said to Harry once they were outside the room, 'I certainly did not expect you to find out about this so quickly, but I should have knowing how close the two of you are.'

'Why teleportation?' Harry asked immediately. 'Of all the things you could get Hermione, Flamel and the Department of Mysteries to collaborate on, why that?'

'For the war effort. Tech to aid our soldiers in the battle against Voldemort's forces.'

'_Teleportation_ though? It seems like a whole far-fetched choice, sir. The long history of failures made it seem pretty much unattainable until Hermione cracked it, and it's not the most practical typa tech for the battlefield. Why would something like that be your first commission? Unless…unless the enemy can already do something similar.'

'Pure speculation, Harry.'

'But you wouldn't waste so much time and resources without a good reason.' _And pandering to the Minister's most fanciful whims isn't a good reason,_ he told himself, remembering how the man technically owned Hermione's miraculous invention.

'Perhaps, and perhaps you should concern yourself with the war matters within your own jurisdiction.'

'What's that, sir? Pumping weights and shooting target practice? I didn't realise I was dumb muscle. I was under the impression that I'd command this army you're raising one day. How can I do that if I hardly know anything of what's going on? I know you're hiding things from me, probably even more than I'm aware of. You never coddled me when it came to physical training, why hide these issues from me now? I can take it.'

Dumbledore looked at him for a very long time. 'I'm sorry, Harry,' he said after, 'I can't know that you would not lose hope. I can't know that you would keep fighting no matter what I told you.'

'Sir, you know me. I'll always keep fighting, no matter the odds. This is important; it changes the game, doesn't it? I don't care. I'll still fight.'

'I'm sorry, Harry. Your tenacity is admirable, and that is why I must preserve it as much as I can.'

'Sir!' Harry called at his back. 'Sir!'

'You told him.'

'Yes, Professor.'

'When you were specifically told not to disclose information on this project to anyone.'

'Yes.'

'And Harry Potter above all.'

'Is it about trust? Because I trust him more than anyone else.'

'We both know this isn't about trust, Ms Granger.

'Why can't he know about this? He's the one who'll be leading the army this tech will be serving.'

'That is the head professor's business, not mine.'

'Do you know yourself?'

'Honestly, no, but Albus is an old friend and I trust his judgement completely. Everything that he does has a well-thought-out meaning behind it. Now can we move on to the more pressing issue of the teleportation device? We need to begin honing the process of human teleportation as soon as possible.'

'How? The margin for error and cost of failure is so much higher. A group of animal activists would care about a pile of ruptured rats, but if even one human died… And we've only tested it within the realms of this room. We can only hypothesise that it would teleport to the other side of Five for example.'

'You've realised one of humanity's greatest dreams by inventing teleportation; this obstacle should not pose too much trouble for you after that.'

'I'd like some guidance from my mentor,' said Hermione.

'When I was your age, developing all manner of tech, I looked for guidance in all sorts of places. But do you know what I discovered? No-one I asked, no matter how venerable, knew as much about my work as I did, _believed_ in it as much as I did. In the end, the solution always came from the same place as the problem: myself.'

'Yes, Professor.' _In other words,_ Hermione surmised, _he doesn't know the answer either. _

…

Harry called Hermione to their common room later that day, and they cohabited a sofa, working on their soltabs, until all of the other students went to bed.

Only once the common room was deserted did Harry turn to Hermione and say: 'Let's be completely honest with each other from now on.'

Hermione's nimble thought processes leapt to many hopeful scenarios involving stilted confessions and tentative hand holding, but none of them seemed corroborated by the grim look on Harry's face.

Then he told her all about the contract Dumbledore had made with Fudge, and she cursed herself for being so frothy and girlish. This was not who she was. And she had bigger concerns on her mind, like the fact that the Ministry owned her brainchild. _Hers_. The product of _her_ mind, still forming, fragile in its fledgling state.

She supposed it was only fair to tell him everything she'd overheard.

'So you're saying that Voldemort's found a weapon that I can't fight and so they need you to invent tech that can?'

Hermione nodded. 'And the First Minister is funding it all in case he does return, and laying claim to everything if he doesn't.'

It was Harry's turn to nod.

'Everything but my inventions, which he takes anyway.'

Harry squeezed her shoulder. 'I'm sorry.'

'What could this all mean? _What_ could Voldemort have that requires such drastic measures?'

'You know your Whole Earth history, right? What sort of tech did they have?'

'By the End? Atomic bombs, heat-seaking missiles, nothing that we haven't developed further, made even more deadly.'

'And before the End? Further into the past?'

'I…I don't know. I don't know _everything_, you know, Harry. What…what's so funny?'

'Sorry, I just always like hearing you admit things like that.'

Hermione sighed. 'I can look into it if you'd like.'

'All right, I will too, though you're probably more likely to find something.'

'Maybe, I am horrendously busy, you know.'

'So am I,' Harry protested. 'The fourth stage is coming up and everything. Though since I'm probably not the great prophesised hero everyone hoped I'd be, I suppose that clears up my calendar quite a bit.'

Hermione petted his arm. 'You're still important. You're still probably the best-trained soldier who's ever lived, the only person who can lead this army.'

'I don't care about being important. I just want to be able to face him. As much as I hate the prophecy, I want to bloody fulfil it now.'

'Oh Harry. Anyone else would be relieved.'

'Well too bad I wasn't raised to be anyone else. The prophecy's part of me now, my reason for being. Without it, what am I?' Hermione hated not having all of the answers. She didn't know how that showed on her face, but it made Harry pause and slide an arm around her shoulders. Physical contact had always soothed him in ways that even the most affectionate words could not, so she huddled against his chest and let him hold her. 'Well, anyway, I think this is good, telling each other everything. We're definitely better off working together. Anything else I should know?'

Hermione stared challengingly up at his striking face. _I'm going to get over you_. 'Nothing I can think of.'

…

The announcement of the fourth stage was met with the largest enthusiasm yet, much to Draco's bemusement. Even his quasi-respectable acquaintances listened with unusual intent as Dumbledore stood to put an end to ludicrous conjecture and explain the final task.

'The final six will simulate a small unit military raid with Harry Potter as their commanding officer. Their goal will be to recover this cup,' Dumbledore clicked and a revolving hologram of a gilded cup hovered before him for the students to admire, 'from behind enemy lines. Now due to the mobile nature of this stage, neither the audience nor the panel will be physically present for the undertaking of this task, but do not worry, all the action you so love to see will be documented by auto-pilot cameras.'

'The same ones tacticians use, right?' Nott asked.

Draco nodded. 'We'll be able to watch Potter fail from all sorts of angles.' The quip lacked his typical verve, not that he could be blamed. He'd awoken that day, already planning how exactly to shirk attendance of the final farce, only to find a stern message from Father in his floo, telling him that he must be there at all costs. But why? What did this event matter to the man anyway? And what made him so certain that Draco would miss it, not that he was wrong? The demand itself and the nonsensical nature of it combined to put Draco in the most irretrievable of moods. He was one of the very few to leave the hall without chattering about the tournament. The sooner it was over the better.

…

The overt simplicity of the final task belied the logistic nightmare it was to fulfil. Its setting was the Fiendfyre Steppe, a remote inhospitable area a few hundred miles south of Hogwarts Castle. It was a dry, dusky, wide-reaching land, characterised by its orange soil. While it had initially been just Harry and the competitors heading to that location (the audience receiving a live transmission of their endeavours from the comfort of the school grounds), First Minister Fudge had insisted that everyone witness as much of the event as they could first-hand.

So on the day of the final stage, a fleet of self-piloting solar ships, each enabled with top quality cloaking devices, arrived to transport the students to the event.

'It's like the second Mass Exodus!' many joked.

The Phoenix students were naturally searched for any tracking devices or more general tech with navigational features that were not disabled, but none of them were stupid enough to own such objects anymore. The finalists had their own ship, Harry and the adjudicators another, which arrived a couple of hours earlier to ensure that everything at the Fiendfyre Steppe was in place: shaded stands for the audience that faced a large assembly of screens, warm up tents for the finalists, Order members who – unknown to the champions – would be posing as enemy soldiers.

The Ministry ship, also invisible, was the next to arrive. Harry knew enough about general politics to identify Cornelius Fudge at first glance. The portly, jowly First Minister was conferring with (or rather nodding absently in response to) a squat, toadish woman that Harry didn't recognise. Probably a member of the Central Cabinet. Disembarking behind them was an arbitrary selection of State Ministers, the elected governors of Five's eighty-three states. Harry labelled the Minister of Manch, the Minister of Dore, Minister of Winch; the others were less familiar to him.

Dumbledore went out to greet the First Minister and his party, and Harry was obligated to accompany him, standing to one side as the two conspirators clasped hands.

'Well, Albus, you've outdone yourself this time.' Fudge had to crane his head back to see past the ridiculous brim of his sunshield hat. 'The Fiendfyre Steppe, the shipping, the security checks, and to think the parents were concerned about the safety of their students!'

His fellow politicians laughed obediently, short and artificial.

'Security has always been a major concern of mine. Even so many years after the Dark Lord's disappearance, one cannot be sure exactly where everyone's allegiances lies.'

'Disappearance,' Fudge scoffed. 'If there's one thing we can rely on you for, Albus, it's consistency. You'll go to your grave insisting that You-Know-Who's only "disappeared", went on a little holiday.' He amused himself with his words, and his companions were quick to chortle with him.

'I do believe that his retreat is only temporary, but a "little holiday" is not quite what I had in mind.'

'The whole of Five admires your dedication to our planet, and the skills you're imparting in these youngsters are…useful in a sense. I've heard reports of what shrewd and capable students you are producing. They'll serve us well in the Auror Militia. But you have to relinquish this idea of You-Know-Who returning. It really isn't doing wonders for this establishment's image. Think of that.'

'I only care for this school's image to be clean and purposeful enough to keep it running. That is all, Cornelius.'

Fudge murmured distractedly, his eyes already focused on a greater point of interest. Harry held himself unflinchingly as the First Minister assessed him, an avaricious gleam winking in his eyes. 'And this is Harry Potter, is it?'

'Yes, Minister,' Harry replied.

'Sturdy young man, isn't he? And I suppose he's practised in all this jiu-jitsu, fujitsu typa business.'

'He has been trained in a whole variety of fighting arts, yes,' Dumbledore acknowledged.

'An all-purpose killing machine,' Fudge gleefully declared, breaching Harry's fiercely guarded personal space in order to examine his face. Harry half expected the man to open his mouth and count his teeth. 'Looking at him you wouldn't think it.'

'I haven't actually killed anyone yet, Minister,' said Harry.

'Would you?' The State Ministers behind him were beginning to look alarmed. None of them likely knew about the contract, Harry reasoned, but that would change if the man continually spoke as if his very purpose was to incriminate himself.

'If it were necessary.'

'What marvellous sobriety. You've raised a serious little man there, Albus.'

'He understands the magnitude of the situation.'

'Of course, magnitude, yes. Well, Mr Potter, it was fascinating to meet you. If this well-meaning defence strategy against You-Know-Who amounts to nothing–'

'It won't,' Harry said.

'But let's just say if, remember that the Ministry welcomes serious, talented, patriotic youngsters like yourself. In fact, whenever you're in Merldon, why don't you drop by and visit us? Just present your name and you'll be guided through.'

Dumbledore looked on with a calm smile. It unsettled Harry. Until now, he'd had no reason to question its radiant geniality.

'How generous of you, Cornelius. I'll escort you to your seats now. We've assigned a box to you and your party. You'll have an excellent view of the events from there.'

The headprof treated Fudge with the utmost care. The First Minister was just as much a voider as Harry had been given reason to believe, but he was probably the most powerful voider in all the Earth Settlements.

Students, staff and parents began to arrive in the Order-sanctioned ships, perfuming the air with anticipatory nattering. The arid space suddenly tasted like a carnival. The atmosphere inside the finalists' tent more closely resembled a morgue. The six contenders stood about aimlessly, stiff as cadavers and only slightly more lively.

'Soldiers,' Harry said upon striding in.

The six finalists sprang to life and formed a line in front of him. Harry looked along them: Carmichael, Davies, Diggory, Johnson, Longbottom, Spinnet. 'Sir!' they bellowed, snapping their heels together.

Harry packed away his own nerves and spoke, 'I want you to forget about who's watching, about what the stakes are. In fact, just forget about the Tournament completely. This mission is simply about retrieving a cup from an enemy. We will do whatever it costs to retake this cup, but naturally, the less cost the better. So you might want to panic, fold, buckle under the pressure. Don't. Remember the cup. It's all about the cup. Is that clear, soldiers?'

'Heard, Captain,' they replied as one.

'Equipment check.'

Today, their attire was different from the academic uniform, the practical gear they wore for physical training and the special armour they'd sported for the second stage duelling. Rendered in various shades of sandstone, they more resembled the fatigues of the current Auror Militia and were fitted with vests that carried handguns, daggers, soltabs and extra ammunition. Each of them had their rifle loaded with disintegrating pellets, so that no harm would come to the Order members they didn't know they would be firing at.

'Permission to speak, Captain.'

'Nev– Longbottom, you really don't have to ask that.'

'Soldier Granger's at the door.'

There she was, hands pressed to the smartglass tentfolds, which were solid against her unauthorised palms.

Harry turned from the finalists, knowing that Hermione would only come to him if it was a matter of great importance, and exited.

'Harry, quickly, it's Luna!'

'What's wrong?'

'I don't know,' Hermione whispered, looking more unhinged than he had ever seen her.

'Ok,' he murmured soothingly, rubbing her shoulders, 'where is she?'

It was impossible to see the petite blonde Raven through the knot of teachers, students and parents that had gathered around her. He manoeuvred through them as patiently as he could, keeping Hermione as close to him as possible. Inside the ring of spectators, Luna was thrashing in Professor McGonagall's arms, pleading with unseen, apparently malevolent, forces.

'Give her some space!' Harry yelled, sweeping his hands at the crowds until they shuffled back.

At the sound of Harry's voice, Luna wailed plaintively and tore from the duelling teacher's grip. She ran at him, and he held her bemusedly as she began to sob into his chest. 'I'm sorry!' she screamed. 'I'm sorry, I'm _sorry_!'

'What? Why?'

'It's over. It's all over!'

'Luna,' Hermione asked quaveringly, 'where are your chems? The chems you carry?'

'No time left. You laughed while you could.'

'What are you talking about?' Harry asked.

'Luna, your chems,' Hermione shouted, searching the girl's bag. 'Please, it's hurting you!'

'They told me,' Luna cried, 'they told you. Br-bring a bag.'

'For what? For the cup?'

'For the spare!'

'The spare what? Luna?!'

The girl was shaking violently in his arms, and Harry feared for her life. Hermione, as cool-headed as it was possible to be, grabbed a thrashing arm. 'Help me hold her down.'

Harry carefully lowered her to the ground and pinned the arm Hermione was holding. In Hermione's shaking hands was a syringe and a pot. She filled the syringe from the pot with a silver chemical solution and injected it into Luna's forearm.

A calmness slowly overtook the girl's body, and Hermione hovered over her, carding her hands through wild, platinum hair. 'You're all right,' she murmured, 'you're all right.'

Harry watched over both of them with a muddled, aching heart. 'Was that "the Nargles"?'

'I think so,' Hermione nodded.

People were crowding them from all angles, pushing to see evidence that the strange little blonde girl had finally gone mad. Harry snarled: 'I said back away. She's not the bloody pre-event entertainment!'

'Harry, calm.'

'Right, Hermione.' Sighing, Harry gently lifted the chemically subdued girl and took her to McGonagall. 'Could you take her to Madame Pomfrey's tent, Professor?'

'No,' Luna moaned, scrabbling for Harry's hand. 'Don't go. Stay and it won't happen. Don't let it happen.'

'I'll go with her,' Hermione decided, prising their hands apart and cradling Luna's between her own.

'No, _Harry_. Harry, don't.'

She made a few desultory attempts at a struggle, but Hermione and McGonagall were more than a match for her weakened muscles, escorting her through the converging crowd. Harry returned to his champions with an odd, stifled feeling in his heart.

Harry had barely met up with the finalists again before Cedric beckoned him to one side. 'Harry, can I talk to you for a bit?' he murmured.

'Sure, let's keep it quick though. There's already enough talk,' Harry grunted, and they stepped outside the tent.

'I just thought you should know,' Cedric said, 'I wouldn't really mind if you decided not to name me the victor.'

'Noted.'

'I just don't want you to feel obliged to do it, just because of what we are to each other. I want to earn it, same as the others.'

'That's a relief to hear, now if you'd–'

Cedric gripped his arm before he could return to the others. 'I'm serious.'

'_Merlin_, Diggory, all right. You're serious. You can employ that when we're on the battlefield.'

'But we won't be, Harry. That's the whole point. There's no-one out there, and there never is. We're training to fight crime veterans and consummate killers with holograms and fake bullets. Say I won this; that would make me the best soldier the school has – apart from you of course. And if I faced a Death Eater tomorrow, or five, or ten, would being the best untried kid in a school of other untried kids mean anything? Can four years of concentrated training rival half a lifetime of fighting a crime lord's cause? I know you've had longer, and it really shows. None of us could come close to you. But could you come close to You Know Who? When the time comes, and the enemy's standing before us, we'll know how to aim our guns, but will we know how to pull the trigger, to deal with what comes after?'

'Cedric.' After casting furtive glances at their surroundings, Harry let his hand cover his comrade's fingers and squeeze. 'Yeah, that day will come. It could be soon; we could still have plenty of time. Either way, it isn't today. Today, we're finding a cup.'

'All right, finding a cup,' Cedric repeated hoarsely, squeezing back. 'We're just practising, right?'

'Right,' Harry pulled back and hoisted his rifle, 'which means acting like we could be attacked any minute. I get that we're not in any actual danger, but unless we think and move like we are, then what's the point of any of this?'

'Heard, Captain,' Cedric said with the briefest, yet brightest, of smiles. 'One more thing.'

'For _Merlin's _sake, Cedric. What now? I've humoured your requests, I've heard your concerns, I've even bloody held your hand. You've Badgered me up so much I should be wearing all yellow. What more can you possibly want?'

'I've got something important to tell you after this.'

'Have you now? Well, the sooner we get this over with, the sooner you can tell me, yeah? Let's start so we can finish.'

The stage was beginning. Harry stood with his six champions encircling him, their backs to the roaring crowds, facing out into the open wilderness.

'The enemy's base,' Harry pointed to the distant stretch of trees, 'perfectly positioned. We'll be completely open to any defensive attacks on this open plain. Have your shields ready. Johnson, you're navigating; Carmichael you're on thermal screening.'

They fastened their helmets, checked over their vests and stood ready.

Moody's infernal cannon signalled the start and Harry's team glided forwards like one unit, five mobile, spherical cameras jetting after them.

They hadn't been running for long when the "enemy" side struck. 'Missiles, sir! Straight ahead, expected impact twenty seconds,' Carmichael declared.

Harry nodded. While they were still so far out, explosives were the best form of defence against approaching assailants. Longbottom was at the front of their little cluster, and Harry tapped his shoulder. Almost instantaneously, the boy veered to the left and the other soldiers followed. Harry mentally awarded him some points.

'Shields up,' Carmichael bellowed.

They sank to their knees as one, braced themselves against each other and activated their chemical shields. The virtually indestructible buffers formed a wall to their right and the blast didn't reach them.

'We keep moving,' Harry said. He noticed that Davies was trembling violently and Spinnet looked ready keel over. He wished he could tell them that it was simply a simulation, a devious combination of holograms, smoke, and heat and sound generators.

They continued like this, creeping closer and evading missiles. The heat of the climate was close to unbearable, and they sweated profusely in their lightweight suits, but none of Harry's soldiers complained or performed insufficiently.

'You're doing well,' he told them, although Moody had told him not to be soft with them. 'This is where it gets difficult.'

The finalists were pleasantly cool-headed when flesh-and-blood Order members began to appear on the field instead of the holograms they had expected. They grouped around their captain, creating a stalwart, gun-firing barrier. Harry shook his head internally, the enemy _wanted_ them to remain a bigger target. Carmichael fell, hit in a chest by a disintegrating bullet and sinking obediently to the ground. Spinnet immediately assumed his role. Davies was next to be hit.

Neville took the initiative: 'Should we split up, Captain?'

And Harry exhaled in relief. Fifty points to the Lions. 'Yes, everyone get mobile, but keep your net movement towards the base.

'Heard!'

Harry had no idea if the Order were being very accommodating or if they were physically inferior to his Phoenix Soldiers, but his small unit were able to tackle a great deal of them before Longbottom, Spinnet and Johnson fell. But then Harry supposed that this whole situation was rather unrealistic. This open battlefield should warrant a much larger force on both sides, artificial barriers, tanks, perhaps even aircraft, but Dumbledore had wanted to assess his students' skills with nothing to hide behind, nothing to use but their skills and their wits.

'Just us now, Captain,' Cedric said.

'Focus, Diggory,' Harry replied, masking a smile. 'Our comrades gave their lives so that we could find the cup of victory, or chalice, or grail, or whatever it is.' With a flick of his head, they were running for what seemed like miles, unimpeded by any hostile forces. After a while, Harry slowed to a halt, Cedric quickly following.

'Everything all right, Captain?' he asked Harry.

'No,' Harry replied, 'there should have been more resistance than this. I don't know where everyone's gone. Something's slanted.'

'Maybe they've changed their plan of attack to keep you on your guard as well. They could be staging an ambush.'

They were reaching the edge of the Fiendfyre Steppe, Cedric's soltab guiding them towards the fringe of emaciated trees that marked its end.

'And that looks like the perfect place to do it. Still, the cup's in there, so that's where we're going. Look long and large.'

'Heard.'

Cedric scouted ahead, Harry covered him; they slipped between the tree trunks, always making sure to keep one at their backs. The airborne cameras, having glided unobtrusively after them throughout the mission, suddenly became noticeable as they fell to the ground one by one. Harry knelt and picked one up, the metal was rapidly cooling in his palm. That was a pretty sure sign that they'd stopped working.

'Captain, the cup,' Cedric announced, slowing as they reached the entrance towards a large clearing.

Harry ejected the magazine of disintegrating bullets from his gun and replaced it with a set of steel-coated lead. Quietly, he instructed Cedric to do the same. Then he stood, rifle cocked, eyes searching. He only spared the cup a passing glance. It had been presented before the competition council freshly forged and met with unanimous approval. It was tall, gold and grand, everything that such a cup required.

Helmet removed but properly armed, Cedric stooped in front of it. 'Should I just pick it up?'

'Hmm? Oh yes, go ahead.'

Cedric paused. 'Together?'

Harry looked around once more, shrugged and strode forward. 'Why not?'

There were two handles, Harry took one, Cedric the other, and they lifted.

'Well, that was momentous,' Harry remarked. 'Is that important something you have to tell me along a similar vein?'

Cedric chuckled, 'Even better,' before sobering. Self-consciously, which Harry hadn't known was possible, Cedric leaned forward. 'Harry, I…'

Harry heard them too late: the rustles and snaps of enemy feet among the wood growth. The forest appeared to restructure itself as dark, hooded figures materialised from behind the trees, weaving between the shadowed trunks, seemingly dancing in and out of existence. Harry's rifle was up instantaneously, and Cedric was quick to follow, but what use was that when the Death Eaters emerged from the treeline and surrounded them completely?

The Chosen One had to steel himself against his trembling heart. They looked exactly as they had that day, the day his life was upended and anything he knew of peace was shattered. Why were they all here, reunified? The answer came quickly, breaking the circle and lowering his hood. The sight of his face sent hysteria lancing through Harry's mind. _No._ _Control it, confine it, destroy it. _

'Harry,' and Harry had forgotten that he wasn't alone in this trap, but he couldn't decide if that was for the best, 'is that…?'

Harry nodded. 'Voldemort,' he confirmed.

The crime lord's face had blurred over time, but now his reappearance gave full clarity to the memories Harry would rather forget. Yes, he remembered that bone-white face: handsome before, perhaps, but now deteriorated so that his skin clung too tightly to the skull beneath. His hair was greyer too, and in decline. And his eyes. They'd done nothing but turn a brighter red. Only chemicals could do that. What had he been taking, injecting into his bloodstream? Why? Whatever it was had turned him into a skeleton of a man, something barely even human.

'The boy has grown,' Voldemort said in the high, cold voice that had plagued Harry's nightmares for over a decade. He stepped forward suddenly, and Harry staggered backwards, pointing his rifle straight at the Dark Lord's smirking face. The Death Eaters laughed at the spectacle.

_Go on and laugh at Dumbledore's failed project,_ Harry thought bitterly. They'd put the gun in his hand and taught him how to use it, but they'd never accounted for the past creeping up on him, paralysing him.

'You have been very lucky to last ten years after our encounter. I was careless, I'll admit, too caught up in glory to look for detail. This will not happen again, believe me. Killing you will bring me great pleasure.'

Harry felt Cedric's grip on the back of his vest, quivering. Merlin, Harry didn't want to look at his face. He didn't want to see his own fear mirrored in his earnest, grey eyes. This boy was meant to be older, wiser, braver. Harry didn't want to see him be the kid he was.

_Seventeen against a man like Voldemort is hardly better than fourteen. _In this circle, they were exactly as Cedric had said. Two untested kids who knew too much and had done so little.

'Are you not even attempting to resist your fate? I'm disappointed. You had more tenacity as a four year old. How you struggled for life then, your little legs kicking as I strangled the air from you.' Harry felt the memory as Voldemort described it: the burn of his lungs, the crushing pain around his throat, the moment when he knew death was calling to him, the abject terror that brought. _Fight it_. He forced himself to stand still, calm his shuddering limbs, murder the devastating memories.

'We could kill you right now,' Cedric said, bolder than the shaking hand holding onto Harry.

'And who are you?'

'No-one important. Just someone who sees that we've both got guns and you don't.'

Voldemort laughed. 'Even if you hit me, my Death Eaters would have your lifeless carcasses peppered with bullets.'

Cedric raised his chin. 'Maybe I don't care. Maybe it's enough for us to get rid of you.'

'Perhaps it would be enough for you. You strike me as an insipid, noble sort. But your little Saviour is a different story. He wants to live. He has always wanted to live. Isn't that true, Potter?' Harry recoiled even further as the man stalked easily towards him. He couldn't help flinching away. Voldemort was going to kill him, he was going to put his hands around his throat and–

'Harry is the most selfless person I've ever met. He's dedicated his whole life to defeating you. And he will, today.'

'Are you content with this boy being your mouthpiece, Potter? I'm not too fond. He talks far too much. Perhaps I'll rectify that and finally give you cause to speak for yourself.'

He removed a polished wooden stick from his cloak, too elegant to be called a mere twig, and balanced it in his fingers. When both of the boys aimed their guns at it, he laughed and then he struck.

Green light unlike anything Harry had ever seen snaked from the tip and enveloped Cedric, obscuring him for a frightening second. His body crumpled to the ground, like a marionette with its strings cut.

And all of a sudden, Harry forgot his fear of the man before him. He shouldered his rifle and knelt beside the copper-haired boy. 'Cedric?' The boy looked untouched, whole, peaceful as if in sleep, except his eyes were wide open. Harry checked for a pulse in his wrist, and then the other one, and then in his neck. 'Ced?' He wasn't doing it properly. He threw off his helmet and laid his head on Cedric's chest, the familiar gesture now marred by the absence of a heartbeat. 'Ced!'

He sat back and shut Cedric's eyes, brushed his fringe back into the uniformity the boy had so liked, tried to reconcile everything that had just happened to reality. It couldn't be real. Everything was just so implausible; it couldn't be real.

'No-one to hide behind now. You choose pretty shields. This boy, handsome, such a waste. And your mother before that.'

This was what he needed. Amongst the grief and fear and confusion, Harry found anger. Anger was easy to grasp, easy to use. It dominated everything that had constrained him before. Quicker than most could process, Harry took up his rifle and open-fired. With a flick of his wooden rod, the air before Voldemort became translucent and caught Harry's bullets easily. Harry stopped after four, frustration warring with debilitating bewilderment. His rifle was pulled from his grip by invisible hands, and he was trussed up and hung by intangible bonds. Something began to compress his throat, constricting until Harry was reliving every moment of his parents' deathday, tears streaming unchecked down his face as he tried to wrench free from his improbable mid-air prison.

'You are pathetic,' Voldemort sneered. 'Is that all that old goat Dumbledore managed to teach you in ten years? How did that senile "prophetess" think to call you my _equal_?' Voldemort's true rage was a terrible sight to behold. 'I challenge any man to look between us and find any kind of equivalence. Do you know what I was doing while you were nursing your wounds and being pampered by that ancient fool? I was researching; I was planning; I was making the four-year journey to the Old Earth to restore magic. How can you compete? How can you possibly compare?'

He released Harry suddenly, and it was all Harry could do to fall on his feet, graceful despite the pain that racked his body. 'Stand, Potter. Stand and die like a man. I'll allow you that. It will be the finest moment in your meagre life.'

Harry stood. He swallowed his fear, mostly, his heart limping in his chest. He looked into Voldemort's eyes as the man cast his spell. The green light shot from Voldemort's wand and erupted a couple of metres from where Harry stood. The world seemed to slow as the green magic arched over him, outlining an imaginary dome around him in acidic, emerald energy, before he felt the air pulse and shift, as if probing Harry to make the next move.

And then the pain in his chest started. It had never been stronger. It felt like red-hot metal spikes were thrashing about in his torso, tearing him up from the inside out. Choking back a howl, he fell to his knees, and he saw Death salute him on the quivering horizon. The sensation grew until it filled him completely, roiling like floodwater against a blockade, until that blockade – _he_ – snapped. An energy surged from him, red to Voldemort's green, and forced the hostile magic back. The connected beams of light stretched between them like a rope, the white point of contact bobbing between them as if in a deadly game of tug of war. Voldemort's light felt stronger than Harry's own, but Harry could see that he was in shock. The man's focus faltered and he released his hold on his magic. The red and green light recoiled on him, and Voldemort disappeared.

Harry felt ten times lighter, larger. He also felt lethargic, drained, and every breath was agonising, but he knew that he had to get out of here. The Death Eaters swarmed him, yet Harry thanked Merlin. They had no wands. He searched the ground for his rifle. Voldemort's magic had tossed it to the right. Cedric's body lay to his left. Harry had no time for the followers that were in his way.

When one gripped his arms, he used the hold to leap up and kick the man hard in the face. Harry felt a grim satisfaction as blood leaked from behind his elaborate mask. These men were not Voldemort, but they were people he could hurt, people that could pay for Cedric's death. He unsheathed a small dagger from his vest, spun and sent it deep into a man's gut. The second blade he kept as he vaulted and dodged around the mess of opponents, striking out when necessary, until he saw his gun.

Someone pulled on his shoulder, wrenching him back up just before he could reach it, and Harry lost all patience. With a roar, he strained forward, seized his rifle, pivoted and rammed the barrel under his assailant's chin.

The death was instant. Messy, but all the more effective for it. His enemies considered him with new eyes. Harry spoke before remorse could overcome him like nausea, wiping blood from his face and flicking it to the earth.

'Looks like you've got a problem,' he bellowed. 'Your lord's reserved the right to kill me, but I have no issue with killing every last fucking one of you!' Fierce determination etched out a path to Cedric, and Harry's gun made it a reality. They were nothing without their leader, and Harry easily cut them down with well-aimed shots at their lower bodies. He made an active effort not to kill, but he was too caught up in adrenaline to care if he was successful. The Death Eaters were panicked. They weren't prepared for his speed or drive, especially after what they had seen of him earlier, and a lot of them shot each other while in pursuit of him. And the searing ache of the bullets that did hit him weren't enough to slow his run.

By the time he'd reached Cedric's body, they'd called a retreat. Voldemort's personal vendetta against Harry must have seemed worthless now that their leader had gone. Harry wanted nothing more than to lie down and sleep forever, but he was deeply familiar with this feeling, knew exactly how to manage it. He heaved Cedric onto his shoulders and started the long journey back.

He left the golden cup behind, glinting in the sun, a relic of Harry's practice years, now most decidedly over.

* * *

**So, what did you think? I'd love to hear people's response to this chapter. **

**Goundry: **I'm glad you like the fic. Yes, that is my intention, having a separate Harry Potter fic with all the magic kept in!


	21. Chapter 21

**Typically, when I had this chapter all ready to publish for last week, my laptop's hard drive decided to crash. The resident techie in the family is trying to coax my files - most of which I backed up (thankfully) - back to me, but in the mean time, this is what I managed to remember!**

**Thank you to everyone who read, favourited, followed and reviewed the last update. Every ounce of feedback reminds me of why I write.**

* * *

Harry was in darkness once more, wearing his combat dress and trying to stand upright against the crippling weight of the rifle slung around his shoulder. The metal burden was too heavy to lift, and it bowed him forwards.

A man stood opposite him, cloaked in black and masked with silver. His throat wore a scarlet smile. He shouldn't have been able to talk – his larynx was a gory, red mess – but an otherworldly power possessed him to speak in a wet, slithery rasp. One word was all he wished to say. 'Murderer.'

'I'm sorry,' Harry replied immediately. 'I'm sorry you had to die.'

The Death Eater was not appeased. He prowled forward and Harry dragged his body backwards, the rifle he tried and failed to lift trailing the ground.

'_Murderer.'_

'I had no other choice. I had to convince them I wasn't easy to kill. I didn't want to die.' The gun was lighter now. Harry could lift it from the ground, his arms juddering in protest.

'_Murderer.'_

'You're my first kill. What number would my death have been in _your_ tally? Fifty, a hundred, more?'

'_Murderer!'_

'Fuck you,' Harry hissed. 'You chose this life. You chose Voldemort and war. You signed on for spreading havoc and slaughtering innocents in their masses. Well face the damn consequences. All killers should know how to die.'

Suddenly the rifle was like air in his hands, and Harry hoisted it up and fired. He emptied his gun in the Death Eater's walking cadaver, shooting until it finally fell. After, Harry yanked off his rifle sling and threw the weapon vehemently away from him.

Now where did he go from here?

He fiddled with his army fatigues, slipping out of them with surprising ease. There was an identical uniform beneath.

'Harry.'

He looked up and started. The landscape had changed during his quarrel with his outfit. He was back at the forest, the forest where the cup was hidden. Except now the trees were people.

They stood in rows, in endless sets of fours: his mother, his father, Sirius and Cedric – corpses held upright like eerie puppets, unmarred, undamaged, looking almost alive with their wide, beseeching eyes. Harry walked among them, diligently watching his feet's slow step. He couldn't look up. He couldn't face them.

'Quickly,' they whispered to him all the same, 'he's still alive. You can still save him.'

Harry's walk became a light jog.

'Hurry, _hurry_.'

The jog became a run. Harry dared himself to look up from time to time.

'Find him. Save him. _Quickly_.'

Harry sprinted. And the avenue of standing bodies opened out into a clearing. There Cedric stood, face bright at the sight of Harry.

'Ced!' Harry called, giddy with relief. He'd only imagined Cedric's corpse before. Here he was, healthy and whole, smiling in that special way.

'Harry!' he called back.

The path to him was suddenly obstructed. Multiple versions of Lily, James and Sirius swarmed him. Harry tried to fight through, to rescind the hold they had on his mental self. They were too strong. They tugged on his hair, his limbs, his clothing. But Cedric smiled, like nothing was wrong. He couldn't see the danger, even now. A dark shadow of a man loomed behind him.

'Cedric!' Harry screamed. 'Cedric, look!'

Cedric was still smiling, eyes only for Harry.

'Cedric, look! Behind you, _look_. Look! Run! Please.'

Lily's hands, James's hands, Sirius's hands formed a ring of flesh around Harry's neck. Harry's yells died in his throat. The lack of air brought him to his knees. And Voldemort drew closer, stood right behind Cedric, froze the smile on the boy's face with a flash of green light.

Harry would have screamed if his dead family weren't throttling him. He would've argued his case as Cedric's body drifted over to him, smile gone, eyes hard.

'Pathetic,' he said.

'Pathetic,' all the Lilys, the Jameses, the Siriuses echoed.

'Why didn't you save me?'

'Why didn't you save _me?'_

'He's a killer.'

'Murderer.'

'_Murderer!' _

Voldemort stood beside Cedric, whose throat wore a scarlet smile. He raised his wand. Green light filled Harry's vision. He welcomed it.

.

'Hush, Harry love.' When had vindictive green light become loving green eyes? Eyes that not so long ago had been condemning him. Harry's mother, haloed with light, smoothed his cheeks, thumbing away the tears. 'It's ok. Everything's going to be ok.'

'I sowwy Mummy!' Harry cried.

'It wasn't your fault, baby. You were just protecting yourself.' Lily tucked her hands beneath Harry's armpits. 'Now come on, you can't stay there.'

"There" was among a wreckage of wood, metal and ceramic that had once been a kitchen. A hazardous session of dog chasing had sent a set of shelves falling on top of Harry, and some strange force within him had struck out, blasted the thing to splinters before it could touch him and shielded him from the flying shrapnel. The rest of the kitchen hadn't fared much better.

Despite that, Lily lifted him out of the resultant mess and cradled him to her.

James rushed in. 'Lils, what's going on? Is Harry ok? What–?' James slowly digested the devastation around him. 'Did Harry do this?'

Lily nodded wordlessly.

'He's getting stronger, aren't you, little man?'

He picked his way across the kitchen and threaded his fingers through Harry's Potter hair, kissing his forehead.

'He is,' agreed Lily.

'Too strong.'

Lily's lips clamped until they lost their soft pink colour.

'Lils, you know they could find out any moment. If they do, they'll know he's the _one.'_ James continued to pet Harry's hair, as if that was all it would take to divert his son's attention. Harry listened anyway, not that he understood much. 'You know what they'll do to our boy then.'

'This was the whole reason we had him in the first place, James,' Lily whispered. 'You know that. We agreed to everything they said might be asked of him.'

'That was _before_. Before he was born, before we knew what being a parent was. Look at him, Lily, our son, and you'll know what we have to do.'

Lily looked at Harry, her eyes filled with such a profound sadness that Harry desperately racked his brains to alleviate it. He reached up and clumsily patted her hair. 'It gonna be ok, Mummy, love.' Much to his dismay, his efforts only made her cry and hug him harder.

'Ok, James,' she murmured into her bemused son's hair. 'Ok, you're right.'

They sat Harry on the big, comfy armchair in the living room that was usually reserved for Daddy, although the dogs had never been as sensitive to his subtle claim of ownership.

'Good boy, there's a good boy. Keep calm, Harry. This won't take long.'

James and Lily knelt before him, clasping hands and synchronising their breaths so that one exhaled while the other inhaled deeply. The air around them was acting funny, invisible to Harry's eyes and yet he knew it was being pushed and pulled about by the something that was radiating from them. And the something inside of him, the one that had blown a hole in the house, flared in his chest and extended towards theirs, reaching, yearning. Harry trembled in fright.

'It's ok, Harry. It's nearly over.'

'Good boy, brave boy.'

Together, they brandished their free hands and touched a fingertip to the skin over Harry's heart. And the scary force inside Harry retreated, was bundled up, condensed down into near nothingness. Soon, Harry couldn't even feel it anymore.'

James sighed deeply when it was all finished. 'Well done, Harry.'

'We won't tell anyone about this, ok, Harry? Not Sirius or Moony or Wormtail.'

'Why?'

'Because it's our secret, just the three of us.'

Harry liked that. Secrets and "the three of them".

'Our secret,' he echoed, 'jus' the fwee of us.'

Absently, he rubbed the skin over his heart. It still tingled.

…

'Ron, he's waking up! Harry?'

Harry's eyes opened to a stark, white ceiling. His sore muscles seized, ready to propel him into defensive action, when he identified his location. The hospital wing. And that voice had been Hermione's. That was her hand now, unsticking his matted, overgrown fringe from his forehead with gentle strokes.

''Mione.' The name came out hoarse, raking his throat bloody as it went. 'Shit.'

If the swearing displeased her, she didn't show it. Her large brown eyes were soft with concern as she helped Harry sit up in bed. Once he was upright, he touched his throat and looked at her inquisitively.

'You were screaming all night,' she conceded tentatively. 'They tried to give you something for it, but I suppose it wore off. Oh Harry, you said your nightmares were getting better. What happened out there? What happened to Cedric?'

All night? Harry buried his face in his hands. How many had seen, heard? What would they think of their brave saviour now, a boy who couldn't even face the man he was billed to conquer?

The box screen around Harry's bed shimmered and parted to his right, revealing a sheepish Ron clutching a mug of steaming liquid as if it was his reason for living. 'All right, Harry? Got some chems for you. Smells bleak though.' A little smile curled his lips, wavering like a shrivelled leaf in the wind. It took Harry a moment to decide whether or not to return it, but when he did, he felt some of the weight leave his shoulders. Not a lot, but just enough for him to feel a difference.

'Here,' Ron said with more confidence, 'down you.'

Harry took the cup and stared at the unappealingly brown mixture. 'I hate Pepper-Up,' he rasped, before swallowing it all in one anyway.

'So,' Ron sat carefully on the edge of the bed, across from Hermione, 'did you tell her what happened to you out there? When you came back all covered in blood carrying his body and just passed out, everyone…'

Even though Harry was looking at Ron, he had a strong feeling that Hermione was shaking her head madly behind his back.

'Can I wait to tell you?' Harry asked, whisper soft. 'I don't want to have to repeat it too many times.'

'Wait until when?' Ron asked, despite Hermione's disapproving stare.

Harry looked expectantly at the screen, as if he could see through it. 'Dumbledore and his entourage showing up.'

They were not long in coming. The sounds of Madame Pomfrey's protests heralded their arrival yet kept them at bay. Harry waited impatiently as her forceful, indecipherable tirade was met by Dumbledore's calm mutterings and Moody's rough grumblings. The bed screens not only masked everything but their swirling silhouettes, but also the topic of their conversation. Whatever it was, Harry decided as he pushed his covers back, it could not be more important than Voldemort's return.

'Harry, com, what are you doing?' Ron asked.

'You're still weak,' Hermione said in a similar tone.

'I'm the authority on my strength today,' Harry said, neatly sliding from the bed. 'I'm fine.'

Harry raised both hands, palms pressed together, then parted them. The screen followed suit. It was almost comical to see the supposed adults frozen in a caricature of an argument as they watched him approach. Madame Pomfrey, oddly enough, was the first to recover.

'Mr Potter, back in bed.'

Harry, having been tended by her for over a decade, knew not to argue. He also knew when to negotiate. 'All right, Madame,' he said as clearly as his throat would allow, 'but only if you let the honourable headprof and his colleagues stay and listen to what I have to say.'

The woman pursed her lips yet agreed quickly enough. Harry resumed his place in bed without further quarrel, smoothing the sheets smartly over his legs. From his perch, he eyed the men standing around his bed. The usual suspects: Dumbledore, Moody, Lupin and Snape. He couldn't say that he was wholly pleased with this line up, but he knew that they would all find everything out soon enough.

'Harry, are you content with everyone in the vicinity remaining to hear your story?' Dumbledore asked, not looking at his own men but at Hermione and Ron.

Harry looked between them. His oldest friend on one side, his truest on the other.

'Yes.'

'He can barely talk,' Hermione said, slightly combatively. 'Surely this can wait.'

Harry looked at her oddly. He had never heard her address a teacher like that before, especially not the head professor. As touched as he was, he put his hand on hers and said, 'They need to know as soon as possible.'

'Indeed, it seems as if we must. What happened, Harry?'

'Voldemort's back.'

Dumbledore remained impressively impassive. The others were not so successful. Ron and Moody swore; Hermione was too busy gasping to care. Remus seemed to age another decade further, Madame Pomfrey screamed, and Snape turned away.

'He killed Cedric,' Harry whispered.

'And he tried to kill you?'

'Of course.'

'But, as before, he was unsuccessful.'

'Either that or this is the afterlife,' Harry joked hollowly. Ron laughed nervously.

'How has he changed?' Dumbledore asked.

'He found his weapon,' Harry said grimly. 'He went to the Whole Earth, or what was left of it, to get it. It…you probably won't even believe me when I tell you.'

'Speak the truth, Harry,' Dumbledore said, 'We have every faith in you.' Snape valiantly kept his pointed sneer to himself.

'He had a wooden stick, whittled and polished until it was smooth, almost a foot long, I'd say. The only thing I could call it is a wand. He shot jets of light out of it and the world bent to his will. The light – _spell_ – that took Cedric was green, green like a solar gun. It – it got him before he could even react. Four years of training were nothing before Voldemort's weapon. You've probably seen the body. It doesn't leave a trace, at least externally. One second Cedric was alive, then suddenly he just wasn't.'

'He has brought _magic_ to this world?' Dumbledore looked to Snape, as if expecting the man to pour his usual font of caustic scepticism on Harry's tale. Instead, he returned the head professor's stare with grim verification.

'We need to speak immediately of this,' Dumbledore said, mirroring the master chemist's gravitas. 'Harry, I want you to recount every detail that you remember. Can you describe how his magic seemed to operate, the extent of his power, any possible limitations?'

'Absolutely not,' Madame Pomfrey intercepted. 'Mr Potter is on bedrest until he recovers. You'll leave him be until then.'

'Madame, please, I'm fine–'

'You were barely conscious when they carried you in, shot in four places,' Madame Pomfrey sharply informed him. 'I'd never seen such a high level of physical exhaustion. And it's tiring, Albus. Every time you leave him in my care, so close to being irreparably broken, and expect me to fix him up so the whole process can begin again, it's _tiring_. If you want to interrogate him once he's been discharged then that's beyond my jurisdiction, but while he's in my hospital, you will respect his wellbeing.'

Dumbledore was unusually silenced, and everyone else in the room looked to him with wide, careful eyes. 'Very well, Madame,' Dumbledore said. 'Well, there is still plenty else to discuss. If you would follow me, Severus, Alastor.'

He and Snape left then, Remus glancing after them like a spare part. Harry closed his eyes, mastering his growing trepidation.

'Don't,' Moody said.

Harry's eyes snapped open again. 'Sir?'

'I stamped out your little boy need to feel sorry for yourself as soon as I could. Now is not the time to start that again. War is almost upon you. Show us why we invested so much in your sorry little arse.'

Ron and Hermione fumed on either side of Harry, but the boy was calm as he replied. 'Heard, sir.' Moody grunted in response before marching out. Only Remus remained, his eyes unusually, emotionally rich. Harry watched him carefully, not allowing the subconscious tickle of hope to colour his features.

'Stay strong, Harry,' the man muttered blandly, before walking out too.

'Like you did?' Harry called at his retreating back. He saw the once-loved man's shoulders tense, but drew neither guilt nor satisfaction from it.

'Harry, You-Know-Who can really do magic?' Ron whispered when the door to the infirmary shut.

'I guess that's the only thing we can really call it,' Harry answered.

'But…but how are we meant to fight _magic_?'

Harry sighed. 'I have no idea, Ron.'

…

Harry didn't know he had been sleeping until he woke up. No dark dreams had permeated his rest this time – and it had been such a long time since sleep could be called rest – he had floated in a black void, bathed in warmth.

Now he was awake, he looked about. Hermione sat alone by his bed with a tablet in her lap, the setting sun colouring her mass of hair a startling auburn. With one hand, she slid the pages of whichever book she was currently engrossed in. The other hand held Harry's tightly.

''Mione,' he said, smiling apologetically when she left the literary world with a violent start, 'how long have you been here?'

Hermione placed her soltab to the side and gave him her full attention. 'Your voice is better.'

So it was. 'But how long have you been here?'

'You didn't…I think you slept better this time.'

'How long?'

'I haven't left since you were last awake.' When Harry moved to protest this, she persisted hurriedly. 'Don't worry, I've eaten. Madame Pomfrey made sure of that. And I wasn't bored. I had my reading.'

'What about lessons?'

'Oh, of course you didn't know. Lessons were cancelled after you returned with, well, you know the rest.'

'Thank you,' Harry said.

Hermione smiled softly and pushed her distractingly red hair away from her face. Harry took one look at the chair she had been sitting in for hours and shuffled to one side of his bed. It took a moment for Hermione to understand his meaning, a while longer for her to follow through, but when she sat beside him, she leaned her head against his shoulder as if it was the only natural thing to do.

'Merlin help me but Moody was right, Hermione. I need to stop.'

'You're still thinking about that? Harry, what he said was unfair.'

'It wasn't. If you had seen me faced with Voldemort. I was fucking _useless._ Everything I learnt deserted me. All I could see was him. Just the sight of him neutralised me. I just kept seeing him kill my parents. That's all I could think about. I thought I was through all that. I thought that day had lost its hold on me. All he had to do was stand there and bring it back and I was helpless, paralysed. How am I supposed to defeat that man? I can't even _look_ at him, I…'

Something that felt dangerously like tears pricked the back of Harry's eyes. _No_. He screwed his eyes shut, clenched his fists and teeth.

'Harry,' Hermione rested her hand on his arm, 'it's ok to feel like that.'

'It's _not_ ok. I'm the Saviour, damn it. I have to kill him. No-one can doubt me. I can't let anyone see me as anything but capable of this.' He opened his eyes when he was sure they were dry. 'Even though I'm not.'

'If you internalise all your fears like this, they'll eat you inside out,' Hermione protested.

'Would you rather that the whole ES see how scared their "hero" is? I couldn't do that. I don't want to let them down. I let Cedric down.' Against his will, Harry's face crumpled and his resolve with it. 'I let him die,' he realised, and his shoulders juddered with the force of a silent sob.

'Harry, look at me. You did not.'

'I just stood there. Voldemort killed him and I just _stood_ there.' His face fell into his hands. Hermione wouldn't see his tears. 'If I can't save one boy, how do I protect everyone? I can't do it, 'Mione. I can't do this.'

'You're not finished yet. You're still–'

'But Voldemort's already started. He's started so high, so far. I can't catch him. I can't compete. The prophetess pitted me up against him and she lost. I don't have the bloody power. I want it. I want it so no-one else has to die. But I don't have it.'

Hermione said no more. She just held him as he wept into her shoulder, and afterwards too, until he drew away from her, taut with embarrassment. 'Merlin, I need to sort myself out.'

'I've seen men older than you cry for less,' Hermione said.

This didn't seem to make Harry feel much better.

'I've been meaning to ask you,' she continued apologetically. 'If Voldemort was using…magic,' her reluctance to apply the word to reality shone through, 'and he was intent on killing you, how did you escape him?'

Harry smiled humourlessly. 'That's our Hermione. She doesn't miss much.'

'I'm being serious, Harry. If he's as deadly as you say, how did you get away?'

'I don't know. He _tried_ to kill me. He shot the green light at me, the same as he did to Ced.'

'But?'

'But it didn't hit me. Something blocked it.'

'Blocked it?'

'I don't know what it was. It was like an invisible shield went up around me. The spell just washed over it. And then,' he debated how best to recount this part, 'then a red light, a spell I guess, grew around me and forced it back. He was so shocked that he lost his hold on the magic and the light rebounded on him.'

'Did it kill him?' Hermione asked, though she clearly recognised the futility of the question.

'No, I replayed it in my head again and again while I was…while I was bringing Cedric's body back. He disappeared before it could hit him.'

'And then I suppose the next logical question is where the shield and that red light came from.'

'The shield, I don't know. It just appeared around of me. And the light…you're not going to believe.'

'Harry, of course I will.'

'I don't even believe it myself. I mean I was delirious at that point, near death with no idea why I hadn't gone the whole way–'

'Harry, the red light.'

'It came from me. I felt this pain in my chest, the one I've been getting a lot recently. It was agonising. The worst it had ever done before was make me collapse, but this time I thought it would rip me apart. But then it just snapped, like a tendon stretched too tight, and this overwhelming force was out and pushing the green light back. I don't know why or how but that's what I think happened. Probably.'

Harry didn't look once at Hermione during this outpour of nonsense. He didn't need to in order to picture her processing face: the little frown she adopted as she adroitly separated myth from fact. Any moment now she would confirm this delusion.

'Could you…do it again?'

''Mione?'

Hermione's voice was quivering, as if she was fighting against her very being. 'Could you make that red light appear, right now?'

'I don't think so. Not now. It was instinctual, a reaction to a threat. I can't even remember what I did. I don't even know if I did it.'

'It's just all so _unfeasible. _Magic, it belongs in stories, Merlin-era legends. Hours before, thoughts of it couldn't have been further from my mind. But if you and Dumbledore say it exists,' she took a deep breath, 'you couldn't make this up, could you, Harry?' Harry shook his head slowly. 'And Dumbledore believed it instantaneously, and he's the wisest man we'll ever know. Don't look at me like that Harry. Yes, he's a calculating…_bastard_ who manipulates everyone without discrimination, but he's wise.

'So it's real, magic? And he has it, Voldemort.'

Harry saw that her mind was still whirring and left her space to think and, hopefully, talk. 'Has anything like that happened around you before, Harry? Anything that you can't explain.'

His reflex answer was 'no', but his body was the part of him trained for reflexes, his mind for second and third glances. "_Has anything unusual happened today?" _his mind asked in Dumbledore's voice. "_Anything you can't explain?" _

No, because…

_Because_

Every time the unusual tried, it had been stopped.

'I think I know what's happened.'

The knowledge was instinctual, as if the roiling force inside of him – was it magic too? – was also its own instruction manual. 'My parents,' the dream – memory – was prevalent in his mind, 'had…magic. I didn't know at the time. I could feel it, fiery little balls like planetary cores in both of their hearts, but I didn't know what it meant.

'I didn't know what mine meant either. It used to lash out when I was scared or angry, destroy things, scare me. Scare them. So my parents,' Harry rubbed the area over his heart again, 'locked it away inside of me. And everything was ok for a while. In situations when I would have done magic, the bounds stopped me and I forgot I could do it altogether.'

'But then?' Hermione prompted.

'But then, it began to hurt. When my training got…more demanding around nine or ten. I guess I found myself in more situations where my suppressed magic wanted to protect me. It was stronger too, strong enough to contest the bounds. Sometimes, it would get so bad I'd pass out. The Order thought it was because of overwork. They eased up and things seemed back to normal. Until this year, the Death Eater raid. Again, the pain was stronger. And then it started acting up even when I wasn't in imminent danger. But that moment, when I knew I was going to die, my magic fought and strained until it broke free.'

Harry paused, a stupid idea taking shape in his mind.

'Harry?'

'Hermione, I think you should throw that chair at me.'

'What? Why on Five would I want to do that?'

'My magic responds most efficiently when I'm in danger.'

'That's your hypothesis, yes, but it isn't necessarily fact.'

'Then we should test it.'

'Not when your serious injury is a potential outcome! This is really unadvisable.'

'Hermione, please. I need to know what this…this…_thing_ in my chest is, how it works. I need your help, 'Mione. Don't deny this to me.'

Harry wielded his luminous eyes as if he knew the full power of them. Hermione groaned. The boy was going to be the death of himself, and most likely she would follow after, as she always did.

'Ok, but I don't like this at all.'

'You're stellar, Hermione.'

Hermione clambered out of the bed and picked up the visitors' chair by its hind legs. It was mostly metal. 'Just suppose that this doesn't work. Suppose that your magic responding whenever you were in danger is mere correlation, not causation, or that even if the magic operates that way, it doesn't read my actions as a threat because of who I am to you–'

'I'll be ok, Hermione. My reflexes are fast enough. I'll catch it or block it.'

Hermione processed this before nodding. 'Ok, that makes me feel slightly better.'

'Good.' Beneath the covers, Harry sat firmly on his hands. 'Ok, I'm ready. Make sure you throw it really hard.'

Screwing her eyes shut, before realising that this probably wasn't the best course of action, Hermione raised the chair and hurled it faster than Harry thought possible. She was barely two metres away, and as Harry watched the metal seat fly towards him, he contemplated exactly how much the next second would hurt.

But the power pulsed in his chest and the chair stopped centimetres from his face, suspended miraculously in mid-air. Hermione had only just begun to gasp when Harry's magic spiked and the chair violently exploded into its fundamental pieces. Harry slid off his hands; Hermione ducked behind the bed with a shriek, but both were unharmed. The air surrounding them had grown a hard skin.

Harry could just about see the air shield when Hermione rose again, big-eyed and rosy-cheeked. It looked like a thin, filmy eggshell or a chrysalis spun from barely visible fibres. The same magic had guarded Voldemort from the bullets Harry had meant for his heart.

'Sorry,' Harry breathed, clasping his hands until she thought they would break. 'I didn't expect it – me – myself to do that. It _was_ me. M'god, it was me then, that forced his magic back.'

Hermione looked at him, smiling sadly as she climbed back into the bed. She'd known before he had. 'The prophetess was right in choosing you to defeat him after all. You are the only one who can defeat him. Your army can fight his army with force and weaponry, but you'll meet him with _magic_.'

'He's still stronger,' Harry realised grimly. 'You should have seen him. Such control, such finesse. A wand, 'Mione, he went all the way back to Whole Earth to get a wand. If I were to defeat him, I'd need a wand.'

'Would you really need a wand? What would it do?'

Harry stared disbelievingly at her and wondered if this was her idea of a humorous comment.

'No, Harry, think about it. Wands aren't indispensable in the act of performing magic, as you've proved, but they're obviously influential in at least some aspects of magic casting or Voldemort wouldn't have returned to Whole Earth to retrieve one. So what role does a wand really serve? Is it like a viaduct, a conduit, a lens?

'Say it was a lens, for magic instead of light. A lens wouldn't be essential to your magic's passage like a conduit would, but it would be able to focus it. So then, and this is all pure speculation here, would the lens be biconcave or biconvex?'

'I was listening carefully to every single word you just said and I'm still lost.'

Hermione laughed. 'A biconcave lens diverges,' she held up her hand and spread the fingers, 'It would expand the magic, give it a wider reach, while the a biconvex,' she formed a peak with both hands, 'would focus it, concentrate it and give you greater control.

'In the end, what I'm trying to say…'

'In your special, longwinded Hermione way,' Harry added.

'…is that we don't know exactly what a wand does, so you shouldn't let the fact that Voldemort has one and you don't discourage you,' she said with a well-practised nudge to Harry's stomach. 'You are the most disciplined person I know. You learn anything you put enough time and energy into. Who's to say that you can't shape and refine your magic the way a wand would just by training yourself every day?'

'How do you always make me feel better?'

'Because I'm brilliant?' Hermione teased.

'You are. You're the most brilliant person I'll ever meet.'

And her cheeks were a very brilliant red when he told her this and pulled her against him so that he could drop an impulsive kiss on her forehead. The look she gave him afterwards made him feel warm himself. It was open, significant, and being here, nestled together in a hospital bed, was significant too. But he was feeling too bone-weary and fraught and apprehensive about the future to ponder why.

He slept some more after that, Hermione curled beatifically against him, and again he had no more nightmares. No, those were now reserved for his wakeful hours. Even as he lay there, they were marching doggedly down the corridor to the infirmary, slamming through the door.

Madame Pomfrey's rant at the intruders to her sanctified hospital woke Harry and Hermione with a start. They scrambled from the bed and parted the screen to observe the commotion. The sight was unbelievable. Dumbledore, Moody, Bartemius Crouch, Rufus Scrimgeour, the current head of law enforcement and a significant handful of other Aurors were all talking over each other in the infirmary.

Moody spotted Harry first, made to move towards him, but Scrimgeour on two sound legs beat him to Harry's bed.

'Harry Potter,' the head Auror intoned, 'in the sight of ES laws, you are respectfully arrested on suspicion of the murder of Cedric Diggory.'

* * *

**RemiccoLim: **Fooled you, didn't I? Thank you for the observation about the parallels; that was one of my main aims with this story. **Janus Darko: **Your review made me laugh so hard. Yep, it's pretty much how you've described it. Thanks to both of you for your enthusiasm!


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